LIBRARY 

or 


SANTA 


CRUZ 


THE   WORKS   OF 

EDWARD    EVERETT    HALE 

Bfcftion 


VOLUME  IX 

SYBARIS 
HOW  THEY    LIVED   IN    HAMPTON 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869, 
BY  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of 
Massachusetts. 


Copyright,  i888y 
BY  J.  STILLMAN  SMITH  &  Co. 

Copyright,  1900, 

BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


UNIVERSITY    PRESS     .      JOHN    WILSON 
AND     SON     •     CAMBRIDGE,     U.S.A. 


PS 


PREFACE 

TO   THE   EDITION    OF    1900. 

THE  sympathetic  reader  will  at  once  see  that 
the  essays  in  this  volume  belong  together, 
however  different  in  form;  and  that  they  follow 
out  the  same  line  of  opinion  and  of  hope.  With 
some  hesitation,  I  have  resisted  the  temptation, 
natural  enough,  to  recast  them  so  far  as  to  substi 
tute  the  statistics  of  the  year  1900,  or  in  any  way 
the  point  of  view  of  to-day,  for  those  which  belong 
to  the  time  when  the  papers  were  printed.  "  What 
is  written,  is  written." 

The  date  of  the  Sybaris  papers,  which  are  the 
earliest,  is  1869;  the  date  of  the  Hampton  book, 
which  is  the  latest,  is  1886;  so  that  nearly  twenty 
years  parts  the  two. 

It  is  with  some  pride  that  in  the  year  1900  I  call 
the  reader's  attention  to  the  fulfilment  in  thirty- 
one  years  of  some  prophecies  of  1869.  Cable 
cars  have  proved  workable  in  that  time;  but  I 
have  letters  of  that  date  from  civil  engineers  who 
wished  to  prove  to  me  that  they  were  impossible. 
Mr.  Ingham  found  the  automobiles  in  successful 
use  in  Sybaris,  and  doubtless  to-day  he  would  find 
them  in  Naples. 


vi  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

My  distinguished  friend,  the  late  Josiah  Quincy, 
used  to  flatter  me  by  telling  me  that  he  owed  to 
the  suggestions  made  in  the  Naguadavick  paper 
the  interest  with  which  he  embarked  in  the  crea 
tion  of  Wollaston,  now  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  beautiful  villages  built  up  near  Boston.  To 
his  energy  and  forethought  the  people  of  Boston 
owe  the  improvements  in  legislation  which  have 
made  possible  the  building  up  of  such  towns  by 
the  combined  effort  of  the  persons  who  are  to 
inhabit  them. 

The  paper  on  Boston  must  be  read  as  belong 
ing  to  the  year  1869.  With  the  energy  of  a  Board 
of  Health  which  is  not  afraid  to  do  its  duty, 
the  terrible  grievances  there  described  have  been 
largely  abated.  The  sad  mortality  of  children 
spoken  of  in  this  paper  was  checked  by  the  im 
pulse  given  in  the  creation  of  the  Sea  Shore  Home, 
and  maintained  by  the  admirable  efficiency  of  the 
Floating  Hospital.  But  the  population  of  Boston 
is  still  terribly  overcrowded,  and  we  must  still  do 
everything  possible  to  relieve  the  congestion. 

When  the  earlier  papers  of  this  series  were 
written,  the  Mayor  of  Boston  was  chosen  for  one 
year  only,  and  he  had  next  to  no  power.  Under 
a  new  charter  he  has  a  term  of  two  years,  and 
his  power  and  responsibility  are  considerably 
enlarged. 

Writing  in  the  year  1900,  thirty  years  after  the 
first  of  these  papers  were  written,  I  think  I  ought 


Preface 


vn 


to  say  that  the  friends  of  decent  government  in 
cities  should  not  be  wholly  dissatisfied  with  the 
improvements  made  in  a  generation. 

To  any  American  reader,  Mr.  Shaw's  studies 
will  easily  show  how  great  has  been  the  improve 
ment  achieved  in  the  cities  of  Europe.  To  speak 
of  our  affairs  here,  the  machinery  of  Boston,  of 
New  York,  and  of  other  cities,  is  certainly  better 
than  it  was  then.  And  there  is  hardly  one  of  the 
western  cities  of  America  which,  in  some  detail  at 
least,  has  not  an  object  lesson  worthy  of  careful 
study.  Sensible  men  no  longer  faint  nor  sneer 
at  the  suggestion  that  a  city  may  own  a  tramway 
or  a  gas  pipe.  The  health  of  children  in  the  large 
cities  is  much  more  sure  than  it  was  then.  Con 
tagious  diseases,  the  disgrace  of  what  is  called 
civilization,  are  checked  to  a  perceptible  degree. 
And  the  next  generation  has  reason  to  hope  that 
democracy  may  find  out  how  to  manage  cities  as 
well  as  they  were  managed  two  thousand  years 
ago. 

Between  the  date  of  the  paper  relative  to  the 
housing  of  the  people  of  Boston  and  the  study  of 
co-operation  which  is  made  at  length  under  the 
title  "  How  They  Lived  in  Hampton,"  a  period 
of  twenty  years  passed.  But  the  studies  for  the 
Hampton  book  were  made  as  early  as  1873.  At 
page  208  of  this  volume  the  reader  will  find  an 
account,  not  only  of  that  book  and  its  origin,  but 
of  some  progress  which  has  been  made  in  carry- 


viii          Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

ing  out  in  practice  the  principles  and  theories  on 
which  it  is  founded. 

I  dedicated  the  first  edition  of  Sybaris  to  the 
Suffolk  Union  for  Christian  Work.  This  Union 
formed  a  regular  meeting  of  gentlemen  and  ladies 
interested  in  plans  where  each  lives  for  all  and 
all  for  each.  Its  name  and  organization  ceased 
with  the  organization  of  the  Associated  Chanties, 
the  Municipal  Club,  the  Twentieth  Century  Club, 
and  some  other  similar  societies;  but  I  like  to 
recall  here  its  efficiency  in  endeavors  for  "  The 
Possible  Boston." 

EDWARD    E.  HALE. 

ROXBURY,  June  19,  1900. 


CONTENTS 

SYBARIS 

PAGE 

PREFACE  TO  THE  EDITION  OF  1900 v 

DEDICATION         3 

PREFACE  TO  THE  EDITION  OF  1869 5 

MY  VISIT  TO  SYBARIS 15 

How  THEY  LIVED  AT  NAGUADAVICK 102 

How  THEY  LIVE  IN  VINELAND 136 

How  THEY  LIVE  IN  BOSTON,  AND  HOW  THEY  DIE 

THERE  ....         .     .         170 

HOMES  FOR  BOSTON  LABORERS 193 

APPENDIX             205 

HOW    THEY    LIVED    IN   HAMPTON 

PREFACE  TO  NEW  EDITION       .     .         211 

PREFACE  TO  THE  EDITION  OF  1888 221 

CHAPTER 

I.   How  THEY  LIVED  IN  HAMPTON     ....  223 

II.    THE  PLAN 244 

III.  THE  RESULTS 250 

IV.  THE  STORE 273 


x  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.   THE  ENTERPRISER 300 

VI.   CHILDREN'S  WORK 316 

VII.   THE  SCHOOL 331 

VIII.   HOURS  OF  WORK 346 

IX.    THE  CHURCH 358 

X.    THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 375 

XI.   ENTERTAINMENT 382 

XII.   TEMPERANCE 399 

XIII.  THE  SAVINGS-BANK 407 

XIV.  WORK  AND  LABOR 425 

XV.    COMMUNISM .    .         ...  442 

XVI.   CONCLUSION 451 


SYBARIS 
AND   OTHER   HOMES 


DEDICATION 


I    DEDICATE    THIS    BOOK 

TO   THE 

SUFFOLK   UNION    FOR   CHRISTIAN    WORK 

At  the  meeting  which  formed  that  Society  the  provision  for  better 
homes  in  cities  was  publicly  declared  to  be  the  first  work  of  Christian 
reform.  At  every  meeting  since  some  person  has  enforced  the  same 
necessity. 

EDWARD   E.  HALE 


SOUTH  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH,  BOSTON, 
September  18,  1869. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE   EDITION   OF    1869 

f  I  VHE  reader  will  see  that  the  papers  in  this 
•*•  book  have  a  single  object,  whether  cast  in 
the  form  of  fiction,  or  whether  statistical  narra 
tives  of  fact.  If  I  should  classify  them  as  the 
papers  were  classified  in  an  earlier  volume  of  this 
little  series,  the  account  of  Naguadavick  is  the 
account  of  what  ought  to  be ;  the  account  of 
Vineland  is  the  account  of  what  is;  and  the 
account  of  Boston  is  the  account  of  what  ought 
not  to  be.  In  the  narrative  of  Sybaris  the  reade 
will  find  something  of  "  if,"  something  of  "yes," 
something  of  "  perhaps  ;  "  some  possibility,  much 
fact,  and  some  exaggeration. 

I  have,  perhaps,  a  right  to  explain  the  earnest 
ness  with  which  I  try  to  enforce  the  necessity  of 
better  homes  for  laboring  men  by  stating  a  sin 
gle  circumstance  in  my  own  history.  For  nearly 
twenty-five  years  I  have  been  constantly  engaged 
in  the  Christian  ministry.  About  half  that  time 
was  spent  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts;  about 
half  of  it  in  Boston.  When  I  went  to  Worcester 
it  was  a  town  of  about  eight  thousand  people; 
when  I  left  it,  it  had  three  times  that  number. 


6  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Boston  is  a  crowded  town  of  a  quarter-million 
inhabitants.  It  is  impossible  for  me  not  to  notice, 
in  every  hour  of  my  life,  the  contrast  between  the 
homes  of  the  working  people  in  these  two  places. 
I  might  almost  say  that  there  is  no  other  differ 
ence  of  importance  between  the  social  oppor 
tunities  of  the  two  places.  They  are  not  far  apart ; 
both  are  active  places  of  business,  employing  in 
about  equal  proportions  people  of  enterprise  and 
energy  in  the  varied  work  of  manufacture,  com 
merce,  and  transportation.  But  in  one  of  these 
places  almost  every  man  can  own  his  house,  and 
half  the  men  do.  In  the  other  hardly  any  man 
can  own  his  house,  and  half  the  people  are 
crowded  into  quarters  where  no  man  should  be 
compelled  to  live. 

To  watch  over  and  improve  the  charities  of  any 
town  is  the  special  duty  of  a  Christian  minister 
in  it,  —  to  feed  its  hungry  and  clothe  its  naked, 
to  open  the  eyes  of  its  blind  and  the  ears  of  its 
deaf,  to  make  its  lame  walk,  to  cleanse  its  lepers, 
and  to  preach  good  tidings  to  its  poor.  Will  the 
reader  imagine  to  himself  the  position  of  the  man 
engaged  in  that  duty,  when  he  finds  his  sick  in 
such  tenements  as  they  must  live  in,  in  our  present 
system,  —  his  blind,  for  instance,  born  so,  perhaps, 
in  rooms  with  no  window,  and  all  his  poor  in  such 
homes  that  the  only  truly  good  tidings  are  tidings 
which  send  them  away  from  him?  Where  a  con 
siderable  part  of  the  people  live  in  such  homes, 
our  best-devised  charities,  either  for  moral  culture 


Preface  7 

or  physical  relief,  work  at  terrible  odds.  Your 
City  Missions,  your  Ministry  at  Large,  your  Indus 
trial  Aid  Society,  or  your  Overseers  of  the  Poor 
are  all  working  against  the  steady  dead  weight 
which,  as  we  all  know,  presses  down  and  holds 
down  the  man  who  is  in  an  unhealthy  or  unhappy 
home. 

The  contrast  in  my  own  life  between  life  in  a 
small  manufacturing  and  commercial  town  and  life 
in  a  large  one  makes  me  feel  the  bitterness  of 
these  odds  the  more.  I  am  sure  that  the  suffering 
thus  involved  is  unnecessary,  as  I  am  sure  the 
labor  which  tries  to  relieve  its  symptoms  must  be 
in  large  measure  thrown  away.  With  an  intense 
personal  interest,  therefore,  have  I  attempted 
to  show  in  this  book  how  these  evils  may  be 
remedied. 

I  do  not  know  but  Colonel  Ingham's  sug 
gestions  as  to  his  imagined  Sybaris  may  be 
thought  too  roseate  and  ideal  for  our  Western 
longitudes.  They  have  been  already  published  in 
the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  and,  in  his  absence  in 
Siberia,  I  have  been  once  and  again  favored 
with  criticisms  upon  them.  It  is  but  fair  to  him 
to  say  that,  so  far  as  the  paper  refers  to  ancient 
Sybaris  or  Thurii,  it  is  a  very  careful  study  of  the 
best  authorities  regarding  that  interesting  state,  — 
a  study  which  I  wish  might  be  pushed  further  by 
somebody.  And  I  incorporate  the  paper  in  this 
volume  because  it  seems  to  me  that  we  have  a 
great  deal  to  learn  from  the  ancient  cities  and 


8  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

from  their  methods  of  government,  were  it  only 
the  great  lesson  of  the  value  of  training  in 
administration. 

There  is  a  very  odd  habit  of  speech  about 
republican  government,  which,  like  most  careless 
habits  of  speech,  hurts  our  practice.  When  the 
theory  of  a  republic  is  discussed,  everybody  says 
that  it  worked  admirably  in  cities  of  compact  ter 
ritory,  but  that  it  failed  when  it  had  to  be  ex 
tended  over  wider  regions.  This  is  really  a 
commonplace  in  the  old-fashioned  sturdy  books 
on  political  institutions.  But  when  you  come  to 
talk  politics  with  practical  people  to-day,  the 
chances  are  nine  in  ten  that  they  say,  "  Ah,  repub 
lican  institutions  are  admirable  for  the  country  at 
large ;  they  work  perfectly  for  a  scattered  popu 
lation  ;  but  when  you  come  to  compact  cities  you 
want  something  very  different.  Must  have  one 
head  there,  one  head  there,"  &c.,  &c.,  &c.  Now, 
certainly  this  is  very  odd,  that  just  as  we  have  all 
learned  to  repeat  one  of  these  lessons  from  old 
Greek  and  Roman  history,  illustrated  in  the  his 
tory  of  Greek  and  Roman  colonies,  we  should  all 
have  to  turn  round  and  say  exactly  the  other 
thing.  Is  it  not  probable  that  there  is  some  mis 
understanding? 

I  believe  that  a  careful  study  of  the  history  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  cities  shows  that  their  suc 
cess  is  largely  due  to  their  attention  to  the  science 
of  administration.  The  men  who  discharged  spe 
cific  functions  were  trained  to  those  functions  and 


Preface  9 

knew  how  to  discharge  them.  In  the  Roman  cities 
no  man  could  be  a  candidate  for  the  higher  grades 
of  service  unless  he  had  served  so  many  years  in 
the  lower.  Any  old  Roman,  asked  to  vote  in  our 
city  elections,  would  take  it  for  granted  that  no 
man  could  be  an  alderman  who  had  not  been  a 
common  councilman  for  a  certain  number  of 
years,  nor  a  mayor  unless  he  had  been  an  alder 
man  for  a  certain  number.  In  Athens  they  were 
even  more  careful,  and  all  officers  were  as  dis 
tinctly  trained  to  their  duties  as  with  us  civil  engi 
neers  are  or  architects.  What  followed  was,  that 
when  the  right  man  got  into  place,  there  was  a 
reasonable  probability  that  he  stayed  in. 

In  our  elective  city  governments,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  a  great  deal  of  good  feeling  and  a  great 
deal  of  public  spirit,  we  find  uncertainty,  hurry 
sometimes,  and  delay  in  others,  frequent  changes 
in  system,  shyness  about  responsibility,  and,  in 
consequence,  a  great  deal  of  discomfort  and  grum 
bling.  I  once  asked  a  very  able  and  pure  man, 
Alexander  A.  Rice,  then  Mayor  of  Boston,  why  the 
city  did  not  undertake  a  duty  which  seemed  im 
portant.  "  How  should  I  know?"  said  he,  with  a 
sigh.  "I  was  chosen  to  this  place  eight  months 
ago,  with  no  experience  in  city  affairs.  If  I  am 
chosen  again  in  December,  I  may  have  heart  to 
start  on  some  such  proposal  as  you  name.  But 
really,  the  first  year  of  a  man's  service  as  mayor 
must  be  given  to  learning  where  he  stands."  This 
is  perfectly  true. 


io  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Now,  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  who  determines 
whether  such  a  man  shall  or  shall  not  go  on?  Al 
most  always,  five  hundred  men,  united,  can  settle 
that  thing  one  way  or  another.  If  he  have  wounded 
the  feelings  of  the  policemen,  —  if  he  have  made  a 
change  in  the  management  of  the  fire  companies, 
—  if  in  any  way  he  have  crossed  the  track  of  any 
compact  organization,  he  is  put  out  and  some  other 
new  man  is  put  in,  for  his  apprenticeship.  I  do 
not  believe  that  this  system  of  neophyte  mayors  is 
necessary.  And  I  believe  that  whenever  the  public 
is  roused  to  study  it,  it  will  be  changed. 

It  does  not  make  so  much  difference  in  Boston, 
however,  because  the  Mayor  has  no  great  power, 
after  all.  He  is  not  much  more  than  a  chairman 
of  selectmen.  The  same  difficulty,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  comes  in,  in  the  choice  of  the  aldermen,  who 
have,  collectively,  some  power.  I  read  a  great 
deal  of  insulting  language  and  bitter  sneering 
about  aldermen.  I  suppose  there  are  bad  alder 
men,  as  I  know  there  are  bad  ministers,  bad  paint 
ers,  and  bad  bootblacks.  But,  in  my  experience, 
the  aldermen  with  whom  I  have  had  to  confer  on 
the  affairs  of  the  city  have  been  hardworking,  up 
right,  intelligent,  public-spirited  men,  doing  a  great 
deal  of  work,  for  which  they  got  no  pay  and  no 
thanks  ;  and  doing  it,  under  our  lumbering  system, 
very  well.  But  they  were  all  doing  it  by  instinct, 
and  not  after  training.  They  had  happened  upon 
the  situation  which  made  them  a  directory  of 
twelve,  governing,  in  nice  details  of  administra- 


Preface  1 1 

tion,  a  city  of  a  quarter-million  people.  They 
had  never  been  trained  in  advance  to  do  that 
duty.  And  by  the  time  they  had  learned  it,  in 
presence  of  the  enemy,  they  were  heartily  sick 
of  it,  and  were  glad  to  resign. 

It  seems  to  me,  that  as  long  as  we  govern  cities 
in  that  way,  we  shall  have  bad  horse-cars,  bad  tene 
ment-houses,  bad  streets,  bad  theatres,  bad  liquor- 
shops,  and  a  great  many  other  bad  things,  which, 
in  a  city  where  administration  was  a  science,  and 
no  man  chosen  to  office  until  he  had  been  trained 
to  it,  Colonel  Ingham  did  not  find  in  Sybaris. 

I  observe  that  the  newspapers  are  a  good  deal 
exercised  when  a  committee  of  the  city  govern 
ment,  or  when  any  city  officers,  go  to  study  the 
systems  of  some  other  cities.  For  my  part,  I  wish 
they  went  a  great  deal  oftener  than  they  do,  and 
studied  such  systems  a  great  deal  more.  I  believe 
the  city  of  Boston  could  make  no  wiser  expendi 
ture  than  it  would  make  in  sending  to  Europe, 
once  in  five  years,  an  intelligent  officer  from  each 
great  department  to  study  French,  English,  Ger 
man,  Italian,  and  Russian  administration  of  streets ; 
of  hackney-coaches,  omnibuses,  and  railroad  sta 
tions;  of  prisons;  of  the  detective  and  general 
police ;  of  health ;  of  markets ;  and  of  education. 
There  is  hardly  a  large  city  in  the  civilized  world 
which  has  not  some  hints  of  value  which  it  could 
give  to  every  other  city. 

Colonel  Ingham  has  received  many  protests 
against  the  arbitrary  and  unprincipled  action  of 


1 2  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

the  government  of  Sybaris  in  compelling  marriage 
among  its  people.  He  had  already  made  his  own 
protest,  as  he  could,  in  his  journal.  Nor  would  he 
wish  to  be  understood  as  desiring  to  enforce  any 
where  statutes  so  tyrannical.  But,  as  I  understand 
him,  he  is  convinced,  by  what  he  has  seen  in  Sybaris 
and  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  every  artificial  ob 
stacle  to  marriage  is  so  much  multiplication  of  all 
other  evil  in  the  world,  and  whether  that  obstacle 
come  in  the  form  of  fashion,  of  custom,  of  senti 
ment,  of  gossip,  of  political  economy,  or  of  law,  it 
is  to  be  deprecated  and  set  aside. 

I  may  add  that  I  do  not  know  why  such  views 
have  not  a  larger  place  than  they  have  in  the  cur 
rent  discussions  of  female  suffrage.  The  married 
woman  and  the  married  man  being  one,  she  now 
has  suffrage.  How  would  it  answer  to  withdraw 
suffrage  from  the  unmarried  men?  This  would 
put  them  on  an  equality  with  the  unmarried 
women;  and  there  would  be  a  possibility,  if  they 
are  troubled  by  the  loss,  of  their  regaining  the 
privilege. 

But  I  will  not,  in  a  preface,  discuss  the  details  of 
any  of  the  experiments  in  city  administration  here 
suggested.  My  chief  wish  is  accomplished,  if  I 
can  call  attention  to  the  delicacy  and  difficulty  of 
these  questions,  and  to  the  necessity  of  studying 
them  with  scientific  and  conscientious  precision. 
When  our  best  men  study  the  details  of  local  ad 
ministration  with  the  care  with  which  Themistocles, 
Aristides,  and  Pericles  studied  them  in  Athens, — 


Preface  1 3 

with  which  Metellus,  the  Catos,  Pompey  the  Great, 
and  Julius  Caesar  were  willing  to  study  them  in 
Rome,  —  we  shall  find,  as  I  believe,  no  difficulty 
in  the  republican  government  of  cities. 

The  shorter  essays  in  this  book  are  devoted  to 
the  single  subject  of  the  homes  of  laborers  at  work 
in  large  cities,  and,  as  I  trust,  require  no  further 
explanation. 

As  the  last  sheets  of  this  book  leave  my  hands, 
the  watchful  kindness  of  a  friend  enables  me  to  add 
the  last  word  regarding  Sybaris. 

Under  the  title  "  De  Paris  a  Sybaris  "  (Paris :  A. 
Lemerre,  1868)  M.  Leon  Palustre  de  Montifaut 
publishes  his  studies  of  art  and  literature  in  Rome 
and  Southern  Italy.  And  here  is  his  record  of 
what  he  saw  of  Sybaris.  He  speaks  first  of  Cas- 
sano,  the  last  Italian  town  which  looks  down  upon 
the  valley  of  ancient  Sybaris. 

"  Cassano,  with  its  beautiful  gardens,  its  tranquil 
aspect,  and  its  gray  mountains,  reminds  one  of  the 
ancient  Sichem.  It  has  its  freshness  and  its  poetry, 
if  it  has  not  the  same  reminiscences. 

"  Still,  I  hastened  my  departure,  for  I  was  eager 
to  cross  before  night  those  broad  and  marshy  ex 
panses  over  which  the  eye  travelled  without  an 
obstacle,  —  a  vast  semicircle  cut  into  the  thickness 
of  the  Apennine,  or  fertile  intervals  left  by  the  sea. 

"  And  what  was  I  going  to  see?  Not  so  much 
as  a  ruin,  —  an  uncertain  region  over  which  lay 
loose  the  voluptuous  name  of  Sybaris.  And  I  had 


14  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

made  a  long  journey.  I  had  undergone  incredible 
fatigue  to  give  myself  this  empty  satisfaction.  How 
the  inhabitants  of  this  easy  city  would  have  laughed 
at  me  !  They  could  not  understand,  says  Athenaeus, 
why  one  should  quit  his  country.  For  themselves 
they  gloried  in  growing  old  where  they  first  saw  the 
light.  Yet  this  people  practised  the  broadest  hos 
pitality,  and,  contrary  to  the  policy  of  most  of  the 
Greek  states,  they  readily  admitted  the  colonists 
of  other  nations  to  the  rank  of  citizens.  May  not 
this  liberal  spirit  and  the  astonishing  fertility  of  the 
soil  explain  the  prosperity  of  this  prosperous  town, 
which  is  so  strangely  kept  in  obscurity  by  all  anti 
quity?  Varro  tells  us  that  wheat  produced  a  hun 
dredfold  on  the  whole  territory  of  Sybaris.  At 
the  present  time  the  uplands  produce  the  richest 
harvests." 

And  this,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  the  only  contri 
bution  to  the  history  or  topography  of  Sybaris 
made  since  the  date  of  Mr.  Ingham's  voyage.  Mon 
sieur  Montifaut,  alas !  like  all  the  others,  hurried 
across  the  upland  six  miles  back  from  the  sea.  It 
is  as  if  a  traveller  from  Providence,  coming  up  to 
Readville,  should  cross  to  Watertown  and  Waltham, 
and  then,  going  through  the  Notch  of  the  White 
Mountains  to  Montreal,  should  publish  his  observa 
tions  on  Boston. 

And  these  notes,  alas !  as  late  as  1867,  are  dated 
like  Colonel  Ingham's,  on  the  1st  of  April! 


MY  VISIT  TO  SYBARIS 

FROM  REV.  FREDERIC  INGHAM'S  PAPERS 

IT  is  a  great  while  since  I  first  took  an  interest  in 
Sybaris.  Sybarites  have  a  bad  name.  But 
before  I  had  heard  of  them  anywhere  else,  I  had 
painfully  looked  out  the  words  in  the  three  or  four 
precious  anecdotes  about  Sybaris  in  the  old  Greek 
Reader ;  and  I  had  made  up  my  boy's  mind  about 
the  Sybarites.  When  I  came  to  know  the  name 
they  had  got  elsewhere,  I  could  not  but  say  that 
the  world  had  been  very  unjust  to  them ! 

Oh,  dear !  I  can  see  it  now,  —  the  old  Latin 
School  room  where  we  used  to  sit  and  hammer 
over  that  Greek,  after  the  small  boys  had  gone. 
They  went  at  eleven  ;  we  —  because  we  were  twelve 
or  more  —  stayed  till  twelve.  From  eleven  to 
twelve  we  sat,  with  only  those  small  boys  who  had 
been  "  kept "  for  their  sins,  and  Mr.  Dillaway. 
The  room  was  long  and  narrow ;  how  long  and  how 
narrow  you  may  see,  if  you  will  go  and  examine 
M.  Duchesne's  model  of  "  Boston  as  it  was,"  and 
pay  twenty-five  cents  to  the  Richmond  schools. 
For  all  this  is  of  the  past ;  and  in  the  same  spot  in 
space  where  once  a  month  the  Examiner  Club  now 


1 6          Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

meets  at  Parker's  and  discusses  the  difference  be 
tween  religion  and  superstition,  the  folly  of  copy 
right,  and  the  origin  of  things,  the  boys  who  did 
not  then  belong  to  the  Examiner  Club,  say  Fox 
and  Clarke  and  Furness  and  Waldo  Emerson, 
thumbed  their  Grseca  Minora  or  their  Greek  Read 
ers  in  "  Boston  as  it  was,"  and  learned  the  truth 
about  Sybaris  !  A  long,  narrow  room,  I  say,  whose 
walls,  when  I  knew  them  first,  were  of  that  tawny 
orange  wash  which  is  appropriated  to  kitchens. 
But,  by  a  master  stroke  of  Mr.  Dillaway's,  these 
walls  were  made  lilac  or  purple  one  summer  vaca 
tion.  We  sat,  to  recite,  on  long  settees,  pea-green 
in  color,  which  would  teeter  slightly  on  the  well- 
worn  floor.  There,  for  an  hour  daily,  while  brighter 
boys  than  I  recited,  I  sat  an  hour  musing,  looking 
at  the  immense  Jacobs's  Greek  Reader,  and  waiting 
my  turn  to  come.  If  you  did  not  look  off  your 
book  much,  no  harm  came  to  you.  So,  in  the 
hour,  you  got  fifty-three  minutes  and  a  few  odd 
seconds  of  day-dream,  for  six  minutes  and  two- 
thirds  of  reciting,  unless,  which  was  unusual,  some 
fellow  above  you  broke  down,  and  a  question, 
passed  along  of  a  sudden,  recalled  you  to  modern 
life.  I  have  been  sitting  on  that  old  green  settee, 
and  at  the  same  time  riding  on  horseback  in  Vir 
ginia,  through  an  open  wooded  country,  with  one 
of  Lord  Fairfax's  grandsons  and  two  pretty  cousins 
of  his,  and  a  fallow  deer  has  just  appeared  in  the 
distance,  when,  by  the  failure  of  Hutchinson  or 
Wheeler,  just  above  me,  poor  Mr.  Dillaway  has  had 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  17 

to  ask  me,  "  Ingham,  what  verbs  omit  the  redu 
plication?"  Talk  of  war!  Where  is  versatility, 
otherwise  called  presence  of  mind,  so  needed  as 
in  recitation  at  a  public  school? 

Well,  there,  I  say,  I  made  acquaintance  with 
Sybaris.  Nay,  strictly  speaking,  my  first  visits  to 
Sybaris  were  made  there  and  then.  What  the 
Greek  Reader  tells  of  Sybaris  is  in  three  or  four 
anecdotes,  woven  into  that  strange,  incoherent 
patchwork  of  "  Geography."  In  that  place  are 
patched  together  a  statement  of  Strabo  and  one  of 
Athenaeus  about  two  things  in  Sybaris  which  may 
have  belonged  some  eight  hundred  years  apart. 
But  what  of  that  to  a  school-boy !  Will  your 
descendants,  dear  reader,  in  the  year  3579  A.  D., 
be  much  troubled  if,  in  the  English  Reader  of 
their  day,  Queen  Victoria  shall  be  made  to  drink 
Spartan  black  broth  with  William  the  Conqueror 
out  of  a  conch-shell  in  New  Zealand? 

With  regard  to  Sybaris,  then,  the  old  Jacobs's 
Greek  Reader  tells  the  following  stories :  "  The 
Sybarites  were  distinguished  for  luxury.  They 
did  not  permit  the  trades  which  made  a  loud  noise, 
such  as  those  of  brass-workers,  carpenters,  and  the 
like,  to  be  carried  on  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  so 
that  their  sleep  might  be  wholly  undisturbed  by 
noise.  .  .  .  And  a  Sybarite  who  had  gone  to 
Lacedaemon,  and  had  been  invited  to  the  public 
meal,  after  he  had  sat  on  their  wooden  benches 
and  partaken  of  their  fare,  said  that  he  had  been 
astonished  at  the  fearlessness  of  the  Lacedaemo- 


1 8  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

nians  when  he  knew  it  only  by  report ;  but  now 
that  he  had  seen  them,  he  thought  that  they  did 
not  excel  other  men,  for  he  thought  that  any  brave 
man  had  much  rather  die  than  be  obliged  to  live 
such  a  life  as  they  did."  Then  there  is  another 
story,  among  the  "  miscellaneous  anecdotes,"  of  a 
Sybarite  who  was  asked  if  he  had  slept  well.  He 
said,  No,  that  he  believed  he  had  a  crumpled  rose- 
leaf  under  him  in  the  night.  And  there  is  yet 
another,  of  one  of  them  who  said  that  it  made  his 
back  ache  to  see  another  man  digging. 

I  have  asked  Polly,  as  I  write,  to  look  in  Mark 
Lemon's  Jest-Book  for  these  stories.  They  are 
not  in  the  index  there.  But  I  dare  say  they  are 
in  Cotton  Mather  and  Jeremy  Taylor.  Anyway, 
they  are  bits  of  very  cheap  Greek.  Now,  it  is  on 
such  stories  that  the  reputation  of  the  Sybarites  in 
modern  times  appears  to  depend. 

Now  look  at  them.  This  Sybarite  at  Sparta 
said,  that  in  war  death  was  often  easier  than  the 
hardships  of  life.  Well,  is  not  that  true?  Have 
not  thousands  of  brave  men  said  it?  When  the 
English  and  French  got  themselves  established 
on  the  wrong  side  of  Sebastopol,  what  did  that 
engineer  officer  of  the  French  say  to  somebody 
who  came  to  inspect  his  works?  He  was  talking 
of  St.  Arnaud,  their  first  commander.  "  Cunning 
dog,"  said  he,  "  he  went  and  died."  Death  was 
easier  than  life.  But  nobody  ever  said  he  was  a 
coward  or  effeminate  because  he  said  this.  W7hy, 
if  our  purpose  would  permit  an  excursus  of  two 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  19 

hundred  pages  here,  on  this  theme,  we  would 
defer  Sybaris  to  the  1st  of  April,  1870,  while  we 
illustrated  the  Sybarite's  manly  epigram,  which 
these  stupid  Spartans  could  only  gape  at,  but 
could  not  understand. 

Then  take  the  rose-leaf  story.  Suppose  by 
good  luck  you  were  breakfasting  with  General 
Grant,  or  Pelissier,  or  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
Suppose  you  said, "  I  hope  you  slept  well,"  and 
the  great  soldier  said,  "No,  I  did  not;  I  think  a 
rose-leaf  must  have  stood  up  edgewise  under  me." 
Would  you  go  off  and  say  in  your  book  of  travels 
that  the  Americans,  or  the  French,  or  the  English 
are  all  effeminate  pleasure-seekers,  because  one  of 
them  made  this  nice  little  joke  ?  Would  you  like 
to  have  the  name  "  American  "  go  down  to  all 
time,  defined  as  Webster1  defines  Sybarite? 

A-MER'I-CAN,  n.  [Fr.  Amtricain,  Lat.  Atnericanus,  from 
Lat.  America,  a  continent  noted  for  the  effeminacy  and 
voluptuousness  of  its  inhabitants.]  A  person  devoted  to 
luxury  and  pleasure. 

Should  you  think  that  was  quite  fair  for  your 
great-grandson's  grandson's  descendant  in  the 
twenty-seventh  remove  to  read,  who  is  going  to 
be  instructed  about  Queen  Victoria  and  William 
the  Conqueror? 

Worst  of  all,  and  most  frequently  quoted,  is  the 

1  I  am  writing  in  Westerly's  snuggery,  and  in  Providence 
they  believe  in  Webster's  dictionary.  I  dare  say  it  is  worse  in 
Worcester's.  A  good  many  things  are. 


2O  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

story  of  the  coppersmiths.  The  Sybarites,  it  is 
said,  ordered  that  the  coppersmiths  and  brass- 
founders  should  all  reside  in  one  part  of  the  city, 
and  bang  their  respective  metals  where  the  neigh 
bors  had  voluntarily  chosen  to  listening  to  bang 
ing.  What  if  they  did?  Does  not  every  manu 
facturing  city  practically  do  the  same  thing? 
What  did  Nicholas  Tillinghast  use  to  say  to  the 
boys  and  girls  at  Bridgewater?  "The  tendency  of 
cities  is  to  resolve  themselves  into  order." 

Is  not  Wall  Street  at  this  hour  a  street  of 
bankers?  Is  not  the  Boston  Pearl  Street  a  street 
of  leather  men?  Is  not  the  bridge  at  Florence 
given  over  to  jewellers?  Was  not  my  valise, 
there,  bought  in  Rome  at  the  street  of  trunk- 
makers?  Do  not  all  booksellers  like  to  huddle 
together  as  long  as  they  can?  And  when  Ticknor 
and  Fields  move  a  few  inches  from  Washington 
Street  to  Tremont  Street,  do  not  Russell  and  Bates 
and  Childs  and  Jenks,  and  De  Vries  and  Ibarra 
follow  them  as  soon  as  the  shops  can  be  got  ready? 

"  But  it  is  the  motive,"  pipes  up  the  old  gray 
ghost  of  propriety,  who  started  this  abuse  of  the 
Sybarites  in  some  stupid  Spartan  black-broth  shop 
(English  that  for  caft),  two  thousand  two  hundred 
and  twenty-two  years  ago,  —  which  ghost  I  am 
now  belaboring,  —  "  it  is  the  motive.  The  Syba 
rites  moved  the  brass-founders,  because  they 
wanted  to  sleep  after  the  brass-founders  got  up  in 
the  morning."  What  if  they  did,  you  old  rat  in  the 
arras?  Is  there  any  law,  human  or  divine,  which 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  21 

says  that  at  one  and  the  same  hour  all  men  shall 
rise  from  bed  in  this  world?  My  excellent  milk 
man,  Mr.  Whit,  rises  from  bed  daily  at  two  o'clock. 
If  he  does  not,  my  family,  including  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke,  John,  and  Acts,  will  not  have  their 
fresh  milk  at  7.37,  at  which  time  we  breakfast  or 
pretend  to.  But  because  he  rises  at  two,  must  we 
all  rise  at  two,  and  sit  wretchedly  whining  on  our 
respective  campstools,  waiting  for  Mr.  Whit  to 
arrive  with  the  grateful  beverage?  Many  is  the 
time,  when  I  have  been  watching  with  a  sick  child 
at  five  in  a  summer  morning,  when  the  little  fellow 
had  just  dropped  into  a  grateful  morning  doze, 
that  I  have  listened  and  waited,  dreading  the 
arrival  of  the  Providence  morning  express.  For  I 
knew  that  a  mile  and  a  half  out  of  Boston,  the 
engine  would  begin  to  blow  its  shrill  whistle,  for 
the  purpose,  I  believe,  of  calling  the  Boston 
station-men  to  their  duty.  Three  or  four  minutes 
of  that  skre-e-e-e  must  there  be,  as  that  train  swept 
by  our  end  of  the  town.  And  hoping  and  wishing 
never  did  any  good;  the  train  would  come,  and 
the  child  would  wake.  Is  not  that  a  magnificent 
power  for  one  engine-man  to  have  over  the  morn 
ing  rest  of  fifty  thousand  sleeping  people,  because 
you,  old  Spartan  croaker,  who  can't  sleep  easy 
underground,  it  seems,  want  to  have  everybody 
waked  up  at  the  same  hour  in  the  morning?  When 
I  hear  that  whistle,  and  the  fifty  other  whistles  of 
the  factories  that  have  since  followed  its  wayward 
and  unlicensed  example,  I  have  wished  more  than 


22  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

once  that  we  had  in  Boston  a  little  more  of  the 
firm  government  of  Sybaris. 

For  if,  as  it  would  appear  from  these  instances, 
Sybaris  were  a  city  which  grew  to  wealth  and 
strength  by  the  recognition  of  the  personal  rights 
of  each  individual  in  the  state,  —  if  Sybaris  were  a 
republic,  where  the  individual  was  respected,  had 
his  rights,  and  was  not  left  to  the  average  chances 
of  the  majority  of  men,  —  then  Sybaris  had  found 
out  something  which  no  modern  city  has  found  out, 
and  which  it  is  a  pity  we  have  all  forgotten. 

I  do  not  say  that  I  went  through  all  this  specu 
lation  at  the  Latin  School.  I  got  no  further  there 
than  to  see  that  the  Sybarites  had  got  a  very 
bad  name,  and  that  the  causes  did  not  appear  in 
the  Greek  Reader.  I  supposed  there  were  causes 
somewhere  which  it  was  not  proper  to  put  into 
the  Greek  Reader.  Perhaps  there  were.  But  if 
there  were,  I  have  never  found  them  since,  —  not 
being  indeed  very  well  acquainted  with  the  lines 
of  reading  in  which  those  who  wanted  to  find 
them  should  look  for  them. 

What  I  did  find  of  Sybaris,  when  I  could  read 
Greek  rather  more  easily,  and  could  get  access  to 
some  decent  atlases,  was  briefly  this. 

Well  forward  in  the  hollow  of  the  arched  foot  of 
the  boot  of  Italy,  two  little  rivers  run  into  the  Gulf 
of  Tarentum.  One  was  once  named  Crathis ;  one 
was  named  Sybaris.  Here  stood  the  ancient  city 
of  Sybaris,  founded  about  the  time  of  Romulus  or 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  23 

Numa  Pompilius,  by  a  colony  from  Greece.  For 
two  hundred  years  and  more  —  almost  as  long, 
dear  Atlantic,  as  your  beloved  Boston  has  sub 
sisted  —  Sybaris  flourished,  and  was  the  Rome  of 
that  region,  ruling  it  from  sea  to  sea. 

It  was  the  capital  of  four  states,  —  a  sort  of  New 
England,  if  you  will  observe,  —  and  could  send 
three  hundred  thousand  armed  men  into  the  field, 
more,  I  will  observe  in  passing,  than  New  England 
has  as  yet  ever  had  occasion  to  send  at  one 
moment.  The  walls  of  the  city  were  six  miles  in 
circumference,  while  the  suburbs  covered  the 
banks  of  the  Crathis  for  a  space  of  seven  miles. 
At  last  the  neighboring  state  of  Crotona,  under 
the  lead  of  Milon  the  Athlete  (he  of  the  calf  and 
ox  and  split  log),  the  Heenan  or  John  Morrissey 
of  his  day,  vanquished  the  more  refined  Sybarites, 
turned  the  waters  of  the  Crathis  upon  their  pros 
perous  city,  and  destroyed  it.  But  the  Sybarites 
had  had  that  thing  happen  too  often  to  be  dis 
couraged.  Five  times,  say  the  historians,  had 
Sybaris  been  destroyed,  and  five  times  they  built 
it  up.  This  time  (444  B.C.)  the  Athenians  sent  ten 
vessels,  with  men  to  help  them,  under  Lampon 
and  Xenocritus.  And  they,  with  those  who  stood 
by  the  wreck,  gave  their  new  city  the  name  of 
Thurii.  Among  the  new  colonists  were  Herodotus 
and  Lysias  the  orator,  who  was  then  a  boy.  The 
spirit  that  had  given  Sybaris  its  comfort  and  its 
immense  population  appeared  in  the  legislation  of 
the  new  state.  It  received  its  laws  from  CHARON- 


24  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

DAS,  one  of  the  noblest  legislators  of  the  world. 
Study  these  laws  and  you  will  see  that  in  the 
young  Sybaris  the  individual  had  his  rights,  which 
the  public  preserved  for  him,  though  he  were 
wholly  in  a  minority.  There  is  an  evident  deter 
mination  that  a  man  shall  live  while  he  lives,  and 
that,  too,  in  no  sensual  interpretation  of  the  words. 
Of  the  laws  made  by  Charondas  for  the  new 
Sybaris  a  few  are  preserved. 

1.  A  calumniator  was  marched  round  the  city 
in  disgrace,  crowned  with  tamarisk.     "  In  conse 
quence,"  says   the    Scholiast,    "they   all   left   the 
city."     Oh  for  such  a  result,  from  whatever  legisla 
tion,  in  our  modern  Pedlingtons,  great  or  little ! 

2.  All  persons  were  forbidden  to  associate  with 
the  bad. 

3.  "He  made  another  law,  better   than   these, 
and    neglected    by  the    older  legislators.     For  he 
enacted  that  all  the  sons  of  the  citizens  should  be 
instructed  in  letters,  the  city  paying  the  salaries  of 
the  teachers.     For  he  held  that  the  poor,  not  being 
able  to  pay  their  teachers  from  their  own  property, 
would  be  deprived  of  the  most  valuable  discipline." 
There  is  FREE  EDUCATION  for  you,  two  thousand 
and  seventy-six  years  before  the  date  of  your  first 
Massachusetts  free  school ;   and  the  theory  of  free 
education  completely  stated. 

4.  Deserters  or  cowards  in  battle  had  to  sit  in 
women's  dresses  in  the  Forum  three  days. 

5.  With  regard  to  the  amendment  of  laws,  any 
man  or  woman  who  moved  one  did  it  with  a  noose 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  25 

round  his  neck,  and  was  hanged  if  the  people  re 
fused  it.  Only  three  laws  were  ever  amended, 
therefore,  all  of  which  are  recorded  in  the  history. 
Observe  that  the  women  might  move  amendments, 
—  and  think  of  the  simplicity  of  legislation  ! 

6.  The  law  provided  for  cash  payments,  and  the 
government  gave  no  protection  for  those  who  sold 
on  credit. 

7.  Their  communication  with  other  nations  was 
perfectly  free. 

I  might  give  more  instances.  I  should  like  to 
tell  some  of  the  curious  stories  which  illustrate  this 
simple  legislation.  Poor  Charondas  himself  fell 
a  victim  to  it.  One  of  the  laws  provided  that  no 
man  should  wear  a  sword  into  the  public  assembly. 
No  Cromwells  there  !  Unfortunately,  by  accident, 
Charondas  wore  his  own  there  one  day.  Brave 
fellow !  when  the  fault  was  pointed  out,  he  killed 
himself  with  it. 

Now,  do  you  wonder  that  a  city,  where  there 
were  no  calumniators,  no  long  credit,  no  bills  at 
the  grocers,  no  fighting  at  town-meetings,  no 
amendments  to  the  laws,  no  intentional  and  open 
association  with  profligates,  and  where  everybody 
was  educated  by  the  state  to  letters,  proved  a  com 
fortable  place  to  live  in  ?  It  is  of  the  old  Sybaris 
that  the  coppersmith  and  the  rose-leaf  stories  are 
told;  and  it  was  the  new  Sybaris  that  made  the 
laws.  But  do  you  not  see  that  there  is  one  spirit 
in  the  whole?  Here  was  a  nation  which  believed 
that  the  highest  work  of  a  nation  was  to  train  its 


26  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

people.  It  did  not  believe  in  fight,  like  Milon  or 
Heenan  or  the  old  Spartans ;  it  did  not  believe  in 
legislation,  like  Massachusetts  and  New  York;  it 
did  not  believe  in  commerce,  like  Carthage  and 
England.  It  believed  in  men  and  women.  It 
respected  men  and  women.  It  educated  men  and 
women.  It  gave  their  rights  to  men  and  women. 
And  so  the  Spartans  called  them  effeminate. 
And  the  Greek  Reader  made  fun  of  them.  But 
perhaps  the  people  who  lived  there  were  indifferent 
to  the  opinions  of  the  Spartans  and  of  the  Greek 
Reader.  Herodotus  lived  there  till  he  died  ;  wrote 
his  history  there,  among  other  things.  Lysias, 
the  orator,  took  part  in  the  administration.  It  is 
not  from  them,  you  may  be  sure,  that  you  get 
the  anecdotes  which  ridicule  the  old  city  of 
Sybaris ! 

You  and  I  would  probably  be  satisfied  with  such 
company  as  that  of  Herodotus  and  Charondas  and 
Lysias.  So  we  hunt  the  history  down  to  see  if 
there  may  be  lodgings  to  let  there  this  summer, 
but  only  to  find  that  it  all  pales  out  in  the 
ignorance  of  our  modern  days.  The  name  gets 
changed  into  Lupiae;  but  there  it  turns  out  that 
Pausanias  made  a  "  strange  mistake,"  and  should 
have  written  Copia,  —  which  was  perhaps  Cossa, 
or  sometimes  Cosa.  Pyrrhus  appears,  and  Hadrian 
rebuilds  something,  and  the  "  Oltramontani,"  who 
ever  they  may  have  been,  ravage  it,  and  finally  the 
Saracens  fire  and  sack  it;  and  so,  in  the  latest 
Italian  itinerary  you  can  find,  there  is  no  post-road 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  27 

goes  near  it,  only  a  strada  rotabile  (wheel-track) 
upon  the  hills ;  and,  alas !  even  the  rotabile  gives 
way  at  last,  and  all  the  map  will  own  to  is  a  strada 
pedonale,  or  footpath.  But  the  map  is  of  the  less 
consequence  when  you  find  that  the  man  who 
edited  it  had  no  later  dates  than  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century,  when  the  family  of  Serra  had 
transferred  the  title  to  Sybaris  to  a  Genoese  family 
without  a  name,  who  received  from  it  forty  thou 
sand  ducats  yearly,  and  would  have  received  more, 
if  their  agents  had  been  more  faithful.  There  the 
place  fades  out  of  history,  and  you  find  in  your 
Swinburne  "  that  the  locality  has  never  been 
thoroughly  examined ;  "  in  your  Smith's  Dic 
tionary,  that  "the  whole  subject  is  very  obscure, 
and  a  careful  examination  still  much  needed ;  "  in 
the  Cyclopedia,  that  the  site  of  Sybaris  is  lost. 
Craven  saw  the  rivers  Crathis  and  Sybaris.  He 
seems  not  to  have  seen  the  wall. of  Sybaris,  which 
he  supposed  to  be  under  water.  He  does  say  of 
Cassano,  the  nearest  town  he  came  to,  that  "no 
other  spot  can  boast  of  such  advantages."  In 
short,  no  man  living  who  has  written  any  book 
about  it  dares  say  that  anybody  has  looked  upon 
the  certain  site  of  Sybaris  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years.1  If  a  man  wanted  to  write  a  mythical  story, 
where  could  he  find  a  better  scene? 

1  The  reader  who  cares  to  follow  the  detail  is  referred  to  Dio- 
dorus  Siculus,  xii.  9  et  seq. ;  Strabo,  vi. ;  yElian,  v.  H.  9,  c. 
24;  Athenseus,  xii.  518-520;  Plutarch  in  Pelopidas ;  Herodotus, 
v.  and  vi.  Compare  Laurent's  Geographical  Notes,  and  Wheeler 


28  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Now  is  not  this  a  very  remarkable  thing?  Here 
was  a  city  which,  under  its  two  names  of  Sybaris 
or  of  Thurii,  was  for  centuries  the  regnant  city 
of  all  that  part  of  the  world.  It  could  call  into  the 
field  three  hundred  thousand  men,  —  an  army 
enough  larger  than  Athens  ever  furnished,  or 
Sparta.  It  was  a  far  more  populous  and  powerful 
state  than  ever  Athens  was,  or  Sparta,  or  the  whole 
of  Hellas.  It  invented  and  carried  into  effect  free 
popular  education,  —  a  gift  to  the  administration 
of  free  government  larger  than  ever  Rome  ren 
dered.  It  received  and  honored  Charondas,  the 
great  practical  legislator,  from  whose  laws  no  man 
shall  say  how  much  has  trickled  down  into  the 
Code  Napoleon  or  the  Revised  Statutes  of  New 
York,  through  the  humble  studies  of  the  Roman 
jurists.  It  maintained  in  peace,  prosperity,  happi 
ness,  and,  as  its  maligners  say,  in  comfort,  an 
immense  population.  If  they  had  not  been  as 

and  Gainsford;  Pliny,  iii.  15;  vii.  22;  xvi.  33;  viii.  64;  xxxi. 
9,  10 ;  Aristotle,  Polit.  iv.  12;  v.  3;  Heyne's  Opuscula,  ii.  74; 
Bentley's  Phalaris,  367;  Solinus,  2,  §  10,  "luxuries  grossly  ex 
aggerated;"  Scymnus,  337-360;  Aristophanes,  Vesp.  1427,  1436; 
Lycophron,  Alex.  1079 »  Pausanias  at  Lupias ;  Polybius,  Gen. 
Hist.  ii.  3,  on  the  confederation  of  Sybaris,  Kroton,  and  Kau- 
lonia,  —  "a  perplexing  statement,"  says  Grote,  " showing  that  he 
must  have  conceived  the  history  of  Sybaris  in  a  very  different 
form  from  that  in  which  it  is  commonly  represented ; "  third  volume 
of  De  Non,  who  disagrees  with  Magnan  as  to  the  site  of  Sybaris, 
and  says  the  seashore  is  uninhabitable  !  Tuccagni  Orlandini,  vol. 
xi.,  Supplement,  p.  294;  besides  the  dictionaries  and  books  of 
travels,  including  Murray.  I  have  availed  myself,  without  other 
reference,  of  most  of  these  authorities. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  29 

comfortable  as  they  were,  —  if  a  tenth  part  of  them 
had  received  alms  every  year,  and  a  tenth  part 
were  flogged  in  the  public  schools  every  year,  and 
one  in  forty  had  been  sent  to  prison  every  year,  as 
in  the  happy  city  which  publishes  these  humble 
studies,  —  then  Sybaris,  perhaps,  would  never  have 
got  its  bad  name  for  luxury.  Such  a  city  lived, 
flourished,  ruled,  for  hundreds  of  years.  Of  such 
a  city  all  that  you  know  now  with  certainty  is,  that 
its  coin  is  "  the  most  beautifully  finished  in  the 
cabinets  of  ancient  coinage ;  "  and  that  no  traveller 
pretends  to  be  sure  that  he  has  been  to  the  site  of 
it  for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  That  speaks 
well  for  your  nineteenth  century. 

Now  the  reader  who  has  come  thus  far  will  un 
derstand  that  I,  having  come  thus  far,  in  twenty 
odd  years  since  those  days  of  teetering  on  the 
pea-green  settee,  had  always  kept  Sybaris  in  the 
background  of  my  head,  as  a  problem  to  be  solved, 
and  an  inquiry  to  be  followed  to  its  completion. 
There  could  hardly  have  been  a  man  in  the  world 
better  satisfied  than  I  to  be  the  hero  of  the  adven 
ture  which  I  am  now  about  to  describe. 

If  the  reader  remembers  anything  about  Gari 
baldi's  triumphal  entry  into  Porto  Cavallo  in  Sicily 
in  the  spring  of  1859,  he  will  remember  that,  be 
tween  the  months  of  March  and  April  in  that  year, 
the  great  chieftain  made,  in  that  wretched  little 
fishing  haven,  a  long  pause,  which  was  not  at 
the  time  understood  by  the  journals  or  by  their 


30  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

military  critics,  and  which,  indeed,  to  this  hour 
has  never  been  publicly  explained.  I  suppose  I 
know  as  much  about  it  as  any  man  now  living. 
But  I  am  not  writing  Garibaldi's  memoirs,  nor  in 
deed,  my  own,  excepting  so  far  as  they  relate  to 
Sybaris;  and  it  is  strictly  nobody's  business  to 
inquire  as  to  that  detention,  unless  it  interest  the 
ex-king  of  Naples,  who  may  write  to  me,  if  he 
chooses,  addressing  Frederic  Ingham,  Esq.,  Water- 
ville,  N.  H.  Nor  is  it  anybody's  business  how  long 
I  had  then  been  on  Garibaldi's  staff.  From  the 
number  of  his  staff  officers  who  have  since  visited 
me  in  America,  very  much  in  want  of  a  pair  of 
pantaloons,  or  a  ticket  to  New  York,  or  something 
with  which  they  might  buy  a  glass  of  whiskey,  I 
should  think  that  his  staff  alone  must  have  made 
up  a  much  more  considerable  army  than  Naples, 
or  even  Sybaris,  ever  brought  into  the  field.  But 
where  these  men  were  when  I  was  with  him,  I  do 
not  know.  I  only  know  that  there  was  but  a  hand 
ful  of  us  then,  hardworked  fellows,  good-natured, 
and  not  above  our  duty.  Of  its  military  details  we 
knew  wretchedly  little.  But  as  we  had  no  artillery, 
ignorance  was  less  dangerous  in  the  chief  of 
artillery ;  as  we  had  no  maps  to  draw,  poor  drafts 
manship  did  not  much  embarrass  the  engineer  in 
chief.  For  me,  I  was  nothing  but  an  aid,  and  I 
was  glad  to  do  anything  that  fell  to  me  as  well  as  I 
knew  how.  And,  as  usual  in  human  life,  I  found 
that  a  cool  head,  a  steady  resolve,  a  concentrated 
purpose,  and  an  unselfish  readiness  to  obey  carried 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  31 

me  a  great  way.  I  listened  instead  of  talking,  and 
thus  got  a  reputation  for  knowing  a  great  deal. 
When  the  time  to  act  came,  I  acted  without  waiting 
for  the  wave  to  recede ;  and  thus  I  sprang  into 
many  a  boat  dry-shod,  while  people  who  believed 
in  what  is  popularly  called  prudence  missed  their 
chance,  and  either  lost  the  boat  or  fell  into  the 
water. 

This  is  by  the  way.  It  was  under  these  circum 
stances  that  I  received  my  orders,  wholly  secret 
and  unexpected,  to  take  a  boat  at  once,  pass  the 
straits,  and  cross  the  Bay  of  Tarentum,  to  com 
municate  at  Gallipoli  with  —  no  matter  whom. 
Perhaps  I  was  going  to  the  "  Castle  of  Otranto." 
A  hundred  years  hence  anybody  who  chooses  will 
know.  Meanwhile,  if  there  should  be  a  reaction  in 
Otranto,  I  do  not  choose  to  shorten  anybody's 
neck  for  him. 

Well,  it  was  five  in  the  afternoon,  —  near  sun 
down  at  that  season.  I  went  to  dear  old  Frank 
Chancy,  —  the  jolliest  of  jolly  Englishmen,  who 
was  acting  quartermaster-general,  —  and  told  him 
I  must  have  transportation.  I  can  see  him  and 
hear  him  now,  —  as  he  sat  on  his  barrel-head,  and 
smoked  his  vile  Tunisian  tobacco  in  his  beloved 
short  meerschaum,  which  was  left  to  him  ever 
since  he  was  at  Bonn,  a  student  with  Prince  Albert 
as  he  pretended.  He  did  not  swear,  —  I  don't 
think  he  ever  did.  But  he  looked  perplexed 
enough  to  swear.  And  very  droll  was  the  twinkle 
of  his  eye. 


32  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

The  truth  was,  that  every  sort  of  a  thing  that 
would  sail,  and  every  wretch  of  a  fisherman  that 
could  sail  her,  had  been,  as  he  knew,  and  as  I 
knew,  sent  off  that  very  morning  to  rendezvous  at 
Carrara,  for  the  contingent  which  we  were  hoping 
had  slipped  through  Cavour's  pretended  neutrality. 
And  here  was  an  order  for  him  to  furnish  me 
"  transportation  "  in  exactly  the  opposite  direction. 

"  Do  you  know  of  anything,  yourself,  Fred  ?  "  said 
he. 

"  Not  a  coffin,"  said  I. 

"Did  the  chief  suggest  anything?  " 

"  Not  a  nutshell,"  said  I. 

"  Could  not  you  go  by  telegraph  ?  "  said  Frank, 
pointing  up  to  the  dumb  old  semaphore  in  whose 
tower  he  had  established  himself.  "  Or  has  not 
the  chief  got  a  wishing  carpet?  Or  can't  you  ride 
to  Gallipoli?  Here  are  some  excellent  white- 
tailed  mules,  good  enough  for  Pindar,  whom  Col- 
vocoressis  has  just  brought  in  from  the  monastery. 
'  Transportation  for  one  !  '  Is  there  anything  to  be 
brought  back?  Nitre,  powder,  lead,  junk,  hard 
tack,  mules,  horses,  pigs,  polenta  or  olla  podrida, 
or  other  of  the  stores  of  war?" 

No ;  there  was  nothing  to  bring  back  except  my 
self.  Lucky  enough  if  I  came  back  to  tell  my  own 
story.  And  so  we  walked  up  on  the  tower  deck  to 
take  a  look. 

Blessed  Saint  Lazarus,  chief  of  Naples  and  of 
beggars !  a  little  felucca  was  just  rounding  the 
Horse  Head  and  coming  into  the  bay,  wing-wing. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  33 

The  fishermen  in  her  had  no  thought  that  they 
were  ever  going  to  get  into  the  Atlantic.  Maybe 
they  had  never  heard  of  the  Ocean  or  of  the 
Monthly.  Can  that  be  possible?  Frank  nodded, 
and  I.  He  filled  up  with  more  Tunisian,  beckoned 
to  an  orderly,  and  we  walked  down  to  the  landing- 
jetty  to  meet  them. 

"  Viva  Italia ! "  shouted  Frank,  as  they  drew 
near  enough  to  hear. 

"  Viva  Garibaldi  /  "  cried  the  skipper,  as  he  let 
his  sheet  fly  and  rounded  to  the  well-worn  stones. 
A  good  voyage  had  they  made  of  it,  he  and  his  two 
brown,  ragged  boys.  Large  fish  and  small,  pink 
fish,  blue,  yellow,  orange,  striped  fish  and  mottled, 
wriggled  together,  and  flapped  their  tails  in  the 
well  of  the  little  boat.  There  were  even  too  many 
to  lie  there  and  wriggle.  The  bottom  of  the  boat 
was  well  covered  with  them,  and  if  she  had  not 
shipped  waves  enough  to  keep  them  cool,  the  boy 
Battista  had  bailed  a  plenty  on  them.  Father  and 
son  hurried  on  shore,  and  Battista  on  board  began 
to  fling  the  scaly  fellows  out  to  them. 

A  very  small  craft  it  was  to  double  all  those 
capes  in,  run  the  straits,  and  stretch  across  the  bay. 
If  it  had  been  mine  "  to  make  reply,"  I  should 
undoubtedly  have  made  this,  that  I  would  see  the 
quartermaster  hanged,  and  his  superiors,  before  I 
risked  myself  in  any  such  rattletrap.  But  as,  unfor 
tunately,  it  was  mine  to  go  where  I  was  sent,  I 
merely  set  the  orderly  to  throwing  out  fish  with 
the  boys,  and  began  to  talk  with  the  father. 

3 


34  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Queer  enough,  just  at  that  moment,  there  came 
over  me  the  feeling  that,  as  a  graduate  of  the  Uni 
versity,  it  was  my  duty  to  put  up  those  red,  white, 
and  blue  scaly  fellows,  who  were  flopping  about 
there  so  briskly,  and  send  them  in  alcohol  to 
Agassiz.  But  there  are  so  many  duties  of  that 
kind  which  one  neglects  in  a  hardworked  world  ! 
As  a  graduate,  it  is  my  duty  to  send  annually  to 
the  College  Librarian  a  list  of  all  the  graduates 
who  have  died  in  the  town  I  live  in,  with  their 
fathers'  and  mothers'  names,  and  the  motives  that 
led  them  to  College,  with  anecdotes  of  their  career, 
and  the  date  of  their  death.  There  are  two  thou 
sand  three  hundred  and  forty-five  of  them,  I  be 
lieve,  and  I  have  never  sent  one-half  anecdote 
about  one !  Such  failure  in  duty  made  me  grimly 
smile  as  I  omitted  to  stop  and  put  up  these  fish  in 
alcohol,  and  as  I  plied  the  unconscious  skipper  with 
inquiries  about  his  boat.  "  Had  she  ever  been 
outside?  "  "  Oh,  signer,  she  had  been  outside  this 
very  day.  You  cannot  catch  tonno  till  you  have 
passed  both  capes,  —  least  of  all,  such  fine  fish  as 
that  is,"  —  and  he  kicked  the  poor  wretch.  Can 
it  be  true,  as  Channing  says,  that  those  dying  flaps 
of  theirs  are  exquisite  luxury  to  them,  because  for 
the  first  time  they  have  their  fill  of  oxygen  ?  "  Had 
he  ever  been  beyond  Peloro?  "  "  Oh,  yes,  signer; 
my  wife,  Catarina,  was  herself  from  Messina,"  — 
and  on  great  saints'  days  they  had  gone  there  often. 
Poor  fellow,  his  great  saint's  day  sealed  his  fate. 
I  nodded  to  Frank,  —  Frank  nodded  to  me,  —  and 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  35 

Frank  blandly  informed  him  that,  by  order  of 
General  Garibaldi,  he  would  take  the  gentleman  at 
once  on  board,  pass  the  strait  with  him,  "  and  then 
go  where  he  tells  you." 

The  Southern  Italian  has  the  reputation,  derived 
from  Tom  Moore,  of  being  a  coward.  When  I 
used  to  speak  at  school,  — 

"  Ay,  down  to  the  dust  with  them,  —  slaves  as  they  are  !  "  — 

stamping  my  foot  at  "  dust,"  I  certainly  thought 
they  were  a  very  mean  crew.  But  I  dare  say  that 
Neapolitan  school-boys  have  some  similar  school 
piece  about  the  risings  of  Tom  Moore's  country 
men,  which  certainly  have  not  been  much  more 
successful  than  the  poor  little  Neapolitan  revolu 
tion  which  he  was  pleased  to  satirize.  Somehow 
or  other,  Victor  Emanuel  is,  at  this  hour,  King  of 
Naples.  Coward  or  not,  this  fine  fellow  of  a  fisher 
man  did  not  flinch.  It  is  my  private  opinion  that  he 
was  not  nearly  as  much  afraid  of  the  enterprise  as  I 
was.  I  made  this  observation  at  the  moment  with 
some  satisfaction,  sent  Frank's  man  up  to  my  lodg 
ings  with  a  note  ordering  my  own  traps  sent  down, 
and  in  an  hour  we  were  stretching  out,  under  the 
twilight,  across  the  little  bay. 

No  !  I  spare  you  the  voyage.  Sybaris  is  what 
we  are  after,  all  this  time,  if  we  can  only  get  there. 
Very  easy  it  would  be  for  me  to  give  you  cheap 
scholarship  from  the  ALneid,  about  Palinurus  and 
Scylla  and  Charybdis.  Neither  Scylla  nor  Cha- 
rybdis  bothered  me,  as  we  passed  wing-wing  be- 


36  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

tween  them  before  a  smart  north  wind.  I  had  a 
little  Hunter's  Virgil  with  me,  and  read  the  whole 
voyage,  and  confused  Battista  utterly  by  trying 
to  make  him  remember  something  about  Palinuro, 
of  whom  he  had  never  heard.  It  was  much  as  I 
afterwards  asked  my  negro  waiter  at  Fort  Monroe 
about  General  Washington  at  Yorktown.  "  Never 
heard  of  him,  sir,  —  was  he  in  the  Regular  Army?" 
So  Battista  thought  Palinuro  must  have  fished  in 
the  Italian  fleet,  with  which  the  Sicilian  boatmen 
were  not  well  acquainted.  Messina  made  no  ob 
jections  to  us.  Perhaps,  if  the  sloop  of  war  which 
lay  there  had  known  who  was  lying  in  the  boat 
under  her  guns,  I  might  not  be  writing  these  words 
to-day.  Battista  went  ashore,  got  lemons,  maca 
roni,  hard  bread,  polenta,  for  themselves,  the  Gior- 
nale  di  Messina  for  me,  and  more  Tunisian ;  and, 
not  to  lose  that  splendid  breeze,  we  cracked  on  all 
day,  past  Reggio,  hugged  the  shore  bravely, 
though  it  was  rough,  ran  close  under  those  cliffs 
which  are  the  very  end  of  the  Apennines,  —  will  it 
shock  the  modest  reader  if  I  say  the  very  toe-nails 
of  the  Italian  foot? — hauled  more  and  more  east 
ward,  made  Spartivento  blue  in  the  distance,  made 
it  purple,  made  it  brown,  made  it  green,  still  run 
ning  admirably,  —  ten  knots  an  hour  we  must  have 
got  between  four  and  five  that  afternoon,  —  and, 
by  the  time  the  lighthouse  at  Spartivento  was 
well  ablaze,  we  were  abreast  of  it,  and  might  be 
gin  to  haul  more  northward,  so  that,  though  we 
had  a  long  course  before  us,  we  should  at  last  be 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  37 

sailing  almost  directly  toward  our  voyage's  end, 
Gallipoli. 

At  that  moment  —  as  in  any  sea  often  happens, 
if  you  come  out  from  the  more  land-locked  chan 
nel  into  the  larger  body  of  water  —  the  wind  ap 
peared  to  change.  Really,  I  suppose,  we  came 
into  the  steady  southwest  wind  which  had  probably 
been  drawing  all  day  up  toward  the  Adriatic.  In 
two  hours  more  we  made  the  lighthouse  of  Stilo,  and 
I  was  then  tired  enough  to  crawl  down  into  the  fear 
fully  smelling  little  cuddy,  and,  wrapping  Battista's 
heavy  storm-jacket  round  my  feet,  I  caught  some 
sort  of  sleep. 

But  not  for  very  long.  I  struck  my  watch  at 
three  in  the  morning.  And  the  air  was  so  un 
worthy  of  that  name  —  it  was  such  a  thick  paste, 
seeming  to  me  more  like  a  mixture  of  tar  and  oil 
and  fresh  fish  and  decayed  fish  and  bilge-water  than 
air  itself —  that  I  voted  three  to  be  morning,  and 
crawled  up  into  the  clear  starlight,  —  how  wonder 
ful  it  was,  and  the  fresh  wet  breeze  that  washed  my 
face  so  cheerily !  —  and  I  bade  Battista  take  his 
turn  below,  while  I  would  lie  there  and  mind  the 
helm.  If — if  he  had  done  what  I  proposed,  I 
suppose  I  should  not  be  writing  these  lines ;  but 
his  father,  good  fellow,  said :  "  No,  signer,  not 
yet.  We  leave  the  shore  now  for  the  broad  bay, 
you  see ;  and  if  the  wind  haul  southward,  we  may 
need  to  go  on  the  other  tack.  We  will  all  stay 
here  till  we  see  what  the  deep-sea  wind  may  be." 
So  we  lay  there,  humming,  singing,  and  telling 


38  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

stories,  still  this  rampant  southwest  wind  behind,  as 
if  all  the  powers  of  the  Mediterranean  meant  to 
favor  my  mission  to  Gallipoli.  The  boat  was  now 
running  straight  before  it.  We  stretched  out 
bravely  into  the  gulf;  but,  before  the  wind,  it  was 
astonishing  how  easily  the  lugger  ran.  He  said 
to  me  at  last,  however,  that  on  that  course  we  were 
running  to  leeward  of  our  object ;  but  that  it  was 
the  best  point  for  his  boat,  and  if  the  wind  held, 
he  would  keep  on  so  an  hour  longer,  and  trust  to 
the  land  breeze  in  the  morning  to  run  down  the 
opposite  shore  of  the  bay. 

"  If"  again.  The  wind  did  not  keep  on.  Either 
the  pole-star,  and  the  dipper,  and  all  the  rest  of 
them,  had  rebelled  and  were  drifting  westward,  — 
and  so  it  seemed,  —  or  this  steady  southwest  gale 
was  giving  out ;  or,  as  I  said  before,  we  had  come 
into  the  sweep  of  a  current  even  stronger,  pouring 
from  the  Levantine  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
full  up  the  Gulf  of  Tarentum.  Not  ten  minutes 
after  the  skipper  spoke,  it  was  clear  enough  to 
both  of  us  that  the  boat  must  go  about,  whether 
we  wanted  to  or  not,  and  we  waked  the  other  boy, 
to  send  him  forward,  before  we  accepted  the  neces 
sity.  Half  asleep,  he  got  up,  courteously  declined 
my  effort  to  help  him  by  me  as  he  crossed  the 
boat,  stepped  round  on  the  gunwale  behind  me  as 
I  sat,  and  then,  either  in  a  lurch  or  in  some  mis 
step,  caught  his  foot  in  the  tiller  as  his  father  held 
it  firm,  and  pitched  down  directly  behind  Battista 
himself,  and,  as  I  thought,  into  the  sea.  I  sprang 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  39 

to  leeward  to  throw  something  after  him,  and 
found  him  in  the  sea  indeed,  but  hanging  by  both 
hands  to  the  gunwale,  safe  enough,  and  in  a 
minute,  with  Battista's  help  and  mine,  on  board 
again.  I  remember  how  pleased  I  was  that  his 
father  did  not  swear  at  him,  but  only  laughed 
prettily,  and  bade  him  be  quick,  and  step  forward ; 
and  then  turning  to  the  helm,  which  he  had  left 
free  for  the  moment,  he  did  not  swear  indeed, 
but  he  did  cry,  "  Santa  Madre ! "  when  he  found 
there  was  no  tiller  there.  The  boy's  foot  had  fairly 
wrenched  it,  not  only  from  his  father's  hand,  but 
from  the  rudder-head,  —  and  it  was  gone  ! 

We  held  the  old  fellow  firmly  by  his  feet  and 
legs,  as  he  lay  over  the  stern  of  the  boat,  head 
down,  examining  the  condition  of  the  rudder-head. 
The  report  was  not  favorable.  I  renewed  the  in 
vestigation  myself  in  the  same  uncomfortable  atti 
tude.  The  phosphorescence  of  the  sea  was  but  an 
unsteady  light,  but  light  enough  there  was  to  reveal 
what  daylight  made  hardly  more  certain,  —  that 
the  wrench  which  had  been  given  to  the  rotten  old 
fixtures,  shaky  enough  at  best,  had  split  the  head 
of  the  rudder,  so  that  the  pintle  hung  but  loosely 
in  its  bed,  and  that  there  was  nothing  available  for 
us  to  rig  a  jury  tiller  on.  This  discovery,  as  it  be 
came  more  and  more  clear  to  each  of  us  four  in 
succession,  abated  successively  the  volleys  of 
advice  which  we  were  offering,  and  sent  us  back  to 
our  more  quiet  "  Santa  Madres  "  or  to  meditations 
on  "what  was  next  to  best." 


40  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Meanwhile  the  boat  was  flying,  under  the  sail  she 
had  before,  straight  before  the  wind,  up  the  Gulf 
of  Tarentum. 

If  you  cannot  have  what  you  like,  it  is  best,  in  a 
finite  world,  to  like  what  you  have.  And  while 
the  old  man  brought  up  from  the  cuddy  his 
wretched  and  worthless  stock  of  staves,  rope-ends, 
and  bits  of  iron,  and  contemplated  them  ruefully, 
as  if  asking  them  which  would  like  to  assume  the 
shape  of  a  rudder-head  and  tiller,  if  his  fairy  god 
mother  would  appear  on  the  top  of  the  mast  for  a 
moment,  I  was  plying  the  boys  with  questions,  — 
what  would  happen  to  us  if  we  held  on  at  this  tear 
ing  rate,  and  rushed  up  the  bay  to  the  head  there 
of.  The  boys  knew  no  more  than  they  knew  of 
Palinuro.  Far  enough,  indeed,  were  we  from  their 
parish.  The  old  man  at  last  laid  down  the  bit  of 
brass  which  he  had  saved  from  some  old  waif,  and 
listened  to  me  as  I  pointed  out  to  them  on  my 
map  the  course  we  were  making,  and,  without  an 
swering  me  a  word,  fell  on  his  knees  and  broke 
into  most  voluble  prayer,  —  only  interrupted  by 
sobs  of  undisguised  agony.  The  boys  were  almost 
as  much  surprised  as  I  was.  And  as  he  prayed 
and  sobbed,  the  boat  rushed  on  ! 

Santa  Madre,  San  Giovanni,  and  Sant1  Antonio, 
—  we  needed  all  their  help,  if  it  were  only  to  keep 
him  quiet;  and  when  at  last  he  rose  from  his 
knees,  and  came  to  himself  enough  to  tend  the 
sheets  a  little,  I  asked,  as  modestly  as  I  could, 
what  put  this  keen  edge  on  his  grief  or  his  devo- 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  41 

tions.  Then  came  such  stones  of  hobgoblins, 
witches,  devils,  giants,  elves,  and  fairies,  at  this 
head  of  the  bay !  —  no  man  ever  returned  who 
landed  there ;  his  father  and  his  father's  father  had 
charged  him,  and  his  brothers  and  his  cousins, 
never  to  be  lured  to  make  a  voyage  there,  and 
never  to  run  for  those  coves,  though  schools  of 
golden  fish  should  lead  the  way.  It  was  not  till 
this  moment  that,  trying  to  make  him  look  upon 
the  map,  I  read  myself  there  the  words,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Crathis  River,  "  Sybari  Ruine." 

Surely  enough,  this  howling  Euroclydon  —  for 
Euroclydon  it  now  was  —  was  bearing  me  and 
mine  directly  to  Sybaris ! 

And  here  was  this  devout  old  fisherman  con 
firming  the  words  of  Smith's  Dictionary,  when  it 
said  that  nobody  had  been  there  and  returned,  for 
generation  upon  generation. 

At  a  dozen  knots  an  hour,  as  things  were,  I  was 
going  to  Sybaris !  Nor  was  I  many  hours  from 
it.  For  at  that  moment  we  cannot  have  been  more 
than  five-and-thirty  miles  from  the  beach,  where,  in 
less  than  five  hours,  Euroclydon  flung  us  on  shore. 

The  memory  of  the  old  green  settees,  and  of 
Hutchinson  and  Wheeler  and  the  other  Latin- 
School  boys,  sustained  me  beneath  the  calamity 
which  impended.  Nor  do  I  think  at  heart  the 
boys  felt  so  bad  as  their  father  about  the  djinns  and 
the  devils,  the  powers  of  the  earth  and  the  powers 
of  the  air.  Is  there,  perhaps,  in  the  youthful  mind, 
rather  a  passion  for  "  seeing  the  folly  "  of  life  a 


42  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

little  in  that  direction?  None  the  less  did  we  join 
him  in  rigging  out  the  longest  sweep  we  had  aft, 
lashing  it  tight  under  the  little  rail  which  we  had 
been  leaning  on,  and  trying  gentle  experiments, 
how  far  this  extemporized  rudder  might  bring  the 
boat  round  to  the  wind.  Nonsense  the  whole ! 
By  that  time  Euroclydon  was  on  us,  so  that  I 
would  never  have  tried  to  put  her  about  if  we  had 
had  the  best  gear  I  ever  handled,  and  our  experi 
ments  only  succeeded  far  enough  to  show  that  we 
were  as  utterly  powerless  as  men  could  be.  Mean 
while  day  was  just  beginning  to  break.  I  soothed 
the  old  man  with  such  devout  expressions  as  here 
tic  might  venture.  I  tried  to  turn  him  from  the 
coming  evil  to  the  present  necessity.  I  counselled 
with  him  whether  it  might  not  be  safer  to  take  in 
sail  and  drift  along.  But  from  this  he  dissented. 
Time  enough  to  take  in  sail  when  we  knew  what 
shore  we  were  coming  to.  He  had  no  kedge  or 
grapple  or  cord,  indeed,  that  would  pretend  to 
hold  this  boat  against  this  gale.  We  would  beach 
her,  if  it  pleased  the  Virgin ;  and  if  we  could  not, 
—  shaking  his  head,  —  why,  that  would  please  the 
Virgin,  too. 

And  so  Euroclydon  hurried  us  on  to  Sybaris. 

The  sun  rose,  oh,  how  magnificently !  Is  there 
anywhere  to  see  sunrise  like  the  Mediterranean? 
And  if  one  may  not  be  on  the  top  of  Katahdin,  is 
there  any  place  for  sunrise  like  the  very  level  of 
the  sea?  Already  the  Calabrian  mountains  of  our 
western  horizon  were  gray  against  the  sky.  One 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  43 

or  another  of  us  was  forward  all  the  time,  trying 
to  make  out  by  what  slopes  the  hills  descended  to 
the  sea.  Was  it  cliff  of  basalt,  or  was  it  reedy 
swamp,  that  was  to  receive  us?  I  insisted  at  last 
on  his  reducing  sail.  For  I  felt  sure  that  he  was 
driving  on  under  a  sort  of  fatality  which  made 
him  dare  the  worst.  I  was  wholly  right,  for  the 
boat  now  rose  easier  on  the  water,  and  was  much 
more  dry. 

Perhaps  the  wind  flagged  a  little  as  the  sun  rose. 
At  all  events,  he  took  courage,  which  I  had  never 
lost.  I  made  his  boy  find  us  some  oranges.  I 
made  them  laugh  by  eating  their  cold  polenta  with 
them.  I  even  made  him  confess,  when  I  called 
him  aft  and  sent  Battista  forward,  that  the  shore 
we  were  nearing  looked  low.  For  we  were  near 
enough  now  to  see  stone-pines  and  chestnut-trees. 
Did  anybody  see  the  towers  of  Sybaris  ? 

Not  a  tower !  But,  on  the  other  hand,  not  a 
gnome,  witch,  Norna's  Head,  or  other  intimation 
of  the  underworld.  The  shore  looked  like  many 
other  Italian  shores.  It  looked  not  very  unlike 
what  we  Yankees  call  salt-marsh.  At  all  events, 
we  should  not  break  our  heads  against  a  wall ! 
Nor  will  I  draw  out  the  story  of  our  anxieties, 
varying  as  the  waves  did  on  which  we  rose  and  fell 
so  easily.  As  she  forged  on,  it  was  clear  at  last  that 
to  some  wanderers,  at  least,  Sybaris  had  some  hos 
pitality.  A  long,  low  spit  made  out  into  the  sea, 
with  never  a  house  on  it,  but  brown  with  storm- 
worn  shrubs,  above  the  line  of  which  were  the 


44          Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

stone-pines  and  chestnuts  which  had  first  given 
character  to  the  shore.  Hard  for  us,  if  we  had 
been  flung  on  the  outside  of  this  spit.  But  we 
were  not.  Else  I  had  not  been  writing  here  to 
day.  We  passed  it  by  fifty  fathom  clear.  Of 
course  under  its  lee  was  our  harbor.  Battista  let 
go  the  halyards  in  a  moment,  and  the  wet  sails 
came  rattling  down.  The  old  man,  the  boy,  Bat 
tista,  and  I  seized  the  best  sweeps  he  had  left. 
Two  of  us  at  each,  working  on  the  same  side,  we 
brought  her  head  round  as  fast  as  she  would  bear 
it  in  that  fearful  sea.  Inch  by  inch  we  wrought 
along  to  the  smoother  water,  and  breathed  free  at 
last  as  we  came  under  the  partial  protection  of 
the  friendly  shore. 

Battista  and  his  brother  then  hauled  up  the  sail 
enough  to  give  such  headway  to  the  boat  as  we 
thought  our  sweeps  would  control.  And  we  crept 
along  the  shore  for  an  hour,  seeing  nothing  but 
reeds,  and  now  and  then  a  distant  buffalo,  when  at 
last  a  very  hard  knock  on  a  rock  the  boy  ahead 
had  not  seen  under  water  started  the  planks  so 
that  we  knew  that  was  dangerous  play ;  and,  with 
out  more  solicitation,  the  old  man  beached  the 
boat  in  a  little  cove  where  the  reeds  gave  place 
for  a  trickling  stream.  I  told  them  they  might 
land  or  not,  as  they  pleased.  I  would  go  ashore 
and  get  assistance  or  information.  The  old  man 
clearly  thought  I  was  going  to  ask  my  assistance 
from  the  father  of  lies  himself.  But  he  was  re 
signed  to  my  will,  —  said  he  would  wait  for  my 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  45 

return.  I  stripped  and  waded  ashore  with  my 
clothes  upon  my  head,  dressed  as  quickly  as  I 
could,  and  pushed  up  from  the  beach  to  the  low 
upland. 

Clearly  enough  I  was  in  a  civilized  country. 
Not  that  there  was  a  gallows,  as  the  old  joke 
says ;  but  there  were  tracks  in  the  shingle  of  the 
beach  showing  where  wheels  had  been,  and  these 
led  me  to  a  cart-track  between  high  growths  of 
that  Mediterranean  reed  which  grows  all  along  in 
those  low  flats.  There  is  one  of  the  reeds  on  the 
hooks  above  my  gun  in  the  hall  as  you  came  in. 
I  followed  up  the  track,  but  without  seeing  barn, 
house,  horse,  or  man,  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
perhaps,  when  behold,  — 

Not  the  footprint  of  a  man !  as  to  Robinson 
Crusoe ; — 

Not  a  gallows  and  man  hanging !  as  in  the 
sailor  story  above  named ;  — 

But  a  railroad  track !  Evidently  a  horse-rail 
road. 

"  A  horse-railroad  in  Italy  !  "  said  I,  aloud.  "  A 
horse-railroad  in  Sybaris !  It  must  have  changed 
since  the  days  of  the  coppersmiths  !  "  And  I  flung 
myself  on  a  heap  of  reeds  which  lay  there,  and 
waited. 

In  two  minutes  I  heard  the  fast  step  of  horses, 
as  I  supposed ;  in  a  minute  more  four  mules 
rounded  the  corner,  and  a  "  horse-car "  came 
dashing  along  the  road.  I  stepped  forward  and 
waved  my  hand,  but  the  driver  bowed  respectfully, 


46  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

pointed  back,  and  then  to  a  board  on  top  of  his 
car,  and  I  read,  as  he  dashed  by  me,  the  word 


displayed  full  above  him  ;  as  one  may  read  Complet 
on  a  Paris  omnibus. 

Now  nx^/oe?  is  the  Greek  for  full.  "  In  Sybaris 
they  do  not  let  the  horse-railroads  grind  the  faces 
of  the  passengers,"  said  I.  "  Not  so  wholly  changed 
since  the  coppersmiths,"  And,  within  the  minute, 
more  quadrupedantal  noises,  more  mules,  and  an 
other  car,  which  stopped  at  my  signal.  I  entered, 
and  found  a  dozen  or  more  passengers,  sitting  back 
to  back  on  a  seat  which  ran  up  the  middle  of  the 
car,  as  you  might  ride  in  an  Irish  jaunting-car. 
In  this  way  it  was  impossible  for  the  conductor  to 
smuggle  in  a  standing  passenger,  impossible  for  a 
passenger  to  catch  cold  from  a  cracked  window, 
and  possible  for  a  passenger  to  see  the  scenery 
from  the  window.  "Can  it  be  possible,"  said 
I,  "  that  the  traditions  of  Sybaris  really  linger 
here?" 

I  sat  quite  in  the  front  of  the  car,  so  that  I  could 
see  the  fate  of  my  first  friend  IlX?}/>e9,  —  the  full 
car.  In  a  very  few  minutes  it  switched  off  from  our 
track,  leaving  us  still  to  pick  up  our  complement, 
and  then  I  saw  that  it  dropped  its  mules,  and  was 
attached,  on  a  side  track,  to  an  endless  chain, 
which  took  it  along  at  a  much  greater  rapidity, 
so  that  it  was  soon  out  of  sight.  I  addressed  my 
next  neighbor  on  the  subject  in  Greek  which 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  47 

would  have  made  my  fortune  in  those  old  days 
of  the  pea-green  settees.  But  he  did  not  seem 
to  make  much  of  that,  but  in  sufficiently  good 
Italian  told  me  that  as  soon  as  we  were  full,  we 
should  be  attached  in  the  same  way  to  the  chain, 
which  was  driven  by  stationary  engines  five  or  six 
stadia  apart,  and  so  indeed  it  proved.  We  picked 
up  one  or  two  market-women,  a  young  artist  or 
two,  and  a  little  boy.  When  the  child  got  in,  there 
was  a  nod  and  smile  on  people's  faces ;  my  next 
neighbor  said  to  me,  IlXrJpe?,  as  if  with  an  air  of 
relief;  and,  sure  enough,  in  a  minute  more,  we 
were  flying  along  at  a  2.20  pace,  with  neither 
mule  nor  engine  in  sight,  stopping  about  once  a 
mile  to  drop  passengers,  if  there  was  need,  and 
evidently  approaching  Sybaris. 

All  along  now  were  houses,  each  with  its  pretty 
garden  of  perhaps  an  acre,  no  fences,  because  no 
cattle  at  large.  I  wonder  if  the  Vineland  people 
know  they  caught  that  idea  from  Sybaris !  All 
the  houses  were  of  one  story,  — stretching  out  as 
you  remember  Pliny's  villa  did,  if  Ware  and  Van 
Brunt  ever  showed  you  the  plans,  —  or  as  Erastus 
Bigelow  builds  factories  at  Clinton.  I  learned 
afterwards  that  stair-builders  and  slaveholders  are 
forbidden  to  live  in  Sybaris  by  the  same  article  in 
the  fundamental  law.  This  accounts,  with  other 
things,  for  the  vigorous  health  of  their  women.  I 
supposed  that  this  was  a  mere  suburban  habit,  and, 
though  the  houses  came  nearer  and  nearer,  yet  as 
no  two  houses  touched  in  a  block,  I  did  not  know 


48  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

we  had  come  into  the  city  till  all  the  passengers 
left  the  car,  and  the  conductor  courteously  told  me 
we  were  at  our  journey's  end. 

When  this  happens  to  you  in  Boston,  and  you 
leave  your  car,  you  find  yourself  huddled  on  a 
steep,  sloping  sidewalk,  under  the  rain  or  snow, 
with  a  hundred  or  more  other  passengers,  all  eager, 
all  wondering,  all  unprovided  for.  But  I  found  in 
Sybaris  a  large  glass-roofed  station,  from  which 
the  other  lines  of  neighborhood  cars  radiated,  in 
which  women  and  even  little  children  were  passing 
from  route  to  route,  under  the  guidance  of  civil 
and  intelligent  persons,  who,  strange  enough,  made 
it  their  business  to  conduct  these  people  to  and 
fro,  and  did  not  consider  it  their  duty  to  insult  the 
traveller.  For  a  moment  my  mind  reverted  to  the 
contrast  at  home ;  but  not  long.  As  I  stood  ad 
miring  and  amused  at  once,  a  bright,  brisk  little 
fellow  stepped  up  to  me,  and  asked  what  my  pur 
pose  was,  and  which  way  I  would  go.  He  spoke 
in  Greek  first,  but,  seeing  I  did  not  catch  his  mean 
ing,  relapsed  into  very  passable  Italian,  quite  as 
good  as  mine. 

I  told  him  that  I  was  shipwrecked,  and  had  come 
into  town  for  assistance.  He  expressed  sympathy, 
but  wasted  not  a  moment,  led  me  to  his  chief  at  an 
office  on  one  side,  who  gave  me  a  card  with  the 
address  of  an  officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  to 
strangers,  and  said  that  he  would  in  turn  introduce 
me  to  the  chief  of  the  boat-builders ;  and  then  said, 
as  if  in  apology  for  his  promptness,  — 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  49 

"  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest." 

He  called  to  me  a  conductor  of  the  red  line,  said 
HeVo?,  which  we  translate  guest,  but  which  I  found 
in  this  case  means  "  dead-head,"  or  "  free,"  bowed, 
and  I  saw  him  no  more. 

"  Strange  country  have  I  come  to,  indeed,"  said 
I,  as  I  thought  of  the  passports  of  Civita  Vecchia, 
of  the  indifference  of  Scollay's  Buildings,  and 
of  the  surliness  of  Springfield.  "And  this  is 
Sybaris !  " 

We  sent  down  a  tug  to  the  cove  which  I  indi 
cated  on  their  topographical  map,  and  to  the  terror 
of  the  old  fisherman  and  his  sons,  to  whom  I  had 
sent  a  note,  which  they  could  not  read,  our  boat 
was  towed  up  to  the  city  quay,  and  was  put  under 
repairs.  That  last  thump  on  the  hidden  rock  was 
her  worst  injury,  and  it  was  a  week  before  I  could 
get  away.  It  was  in  this  time  that  I  got  the  in 
formation  I  am  now  to  give,  partly  from  my  own 
observations,  partly  from  what  George  the  Proxe- 
nus  or  his  brother  Philip  told  me,  —  more  from 
what  I  got  from  a  very  pleasing  person,  the  wife 
of  another  brother,  at  whose  house  I  used  to  visit 
freely,  and  whose  boys,  fine  fellows,  were  very  fond 
of  talking  about  America  with  me.  They  spoke 
English  very  funnily,  and  like  little  school-books. 
The  ship-carpenter,  a  man  named  Alexander,  was 
a  very  intelligent  person ;  and,  indeed,  the  whole 
social  arrangement  of  the  place  was  so  simple  that 

4 


50  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

it  seemed  to  me  that  I  got  on  very  fast  and  knew 
a  great  deal  of  them  in  a  very  short  time. 

At  this  point  I  will,  for  greater  convenience, 
quote  directly  from  my  journal.  It  has  the  fault 
which  all  journals  have,  that  their  memoranda  are 
apt  to  be  fullest  when  one  has  the  most  time  to 
write,  and  that  they  are  therefore  most  barren  just 
at  those  points  of  crisis  when  the  writer  really  has 
most  to  tell.  This  remark  will  be  found  near  the 
beginning  of  "  John  Adams's  Journal,"  of  which  it 
is  signally  true.  I  will,  however,  copy  what  there 
is  in  mine.  When  I  find  that  it  fails,  I  will  do  my 
best  to  supply  the  deficiency. 

JOURNAL. 

The  TT/ao'fei/o?,  Proxenus,  as  this  officer  is  called 
(officer  whose  business  is  to  care  for  strangers, 
quite  after  the  old  Athenian  system),  was  very 
civil,  though  a  short-metre  kind  of  person,  used 
evidently  to  affairs  in  the  time  of  affairs,  and  to 
nothing  else.  He  offered  Greek  at  first  for  talk,  as 
the  man  had  done  at  the  station;  but  finding  I 
preferred  Italian,  fell  into  that  readily.  I  am  too 
tired  to-night,  not  to  say  sleepy,  to  try  to  write  out 
much  of  what  he  told  me,  or  I  told  him.  He  was 
very  expeditious,  when  he  heard  about  the  boat,  in 
sending  to  her  relief.  He  led  me  to  a  good  map  of 
the  city  and  harbor  which  hung  on  the  office  wall, 
and  in  five  minutes  had  sent  a  despatch  which  he 
said  would  fit  out  a  tug  which  would  bring  the  old 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  51 

man  and  the  boys  up  to  the  city.  I  offered  to  go 
with  them.  But  he  said  no,  —  that  I  should  be  of 
no  use  there,  —  or  rather  of  none  which  a  note 
from  me  would  not  serve  as  well ;  and  that,  as  I 
must  have  had  a  fatiguing  night,  I  should  be  much 
better  off  at  my  inn.  I  observed  he  used  the  tele 
graph  constantly,  even  sending  his  own  despatches 
by  his  own  instrument,  at  his  office  desk,  —  writ 
ing  as  readily  so  as  I  do  these  words.  In  answer 
to  a  question  of  mine,  he  said  there  were  delivery 
offices  almost  everywhere,  and  that  they  hardly 
ever  had  occasion  to  use  a  special  messenger. 
But  when  he  wanted  to  send  my  note  to  the  tug, 
and  afterwards  to  send  me  here,  he  beckoned  to 
his  son,  a  tall,  pleasant-looking  boy,  who  brought 
me,  to  show  me  the  way.1 

The  inn  covers  a  good  deal  of  ground  for  the 
number  of  rooms,  but  there  is  not  a  staircase  in  it. 
It  is  not  larger  than  a  generous  private  house. 
The  whole  is  of  one  story,  as  is  every  other  house 
I  have  so  far  seen  in  Sybaris.  The  mistress  is  a 

1  After  I  knew  the  Proxenus  better,  I  told  him  that  this  ready 
and  constant  use  of  the  telegraph  was  one  of  the  first  of  their  con 
veniences  I  noticed.  He  said  the  telegraph  was  an  old  affair  with 
them,  and  he  wondered  other  nations  had  been  so  slow  in  copy 
ing  it ;  that  they  used  it  as  long  ago  as  what  he  called  their  day  of 
horrors,  when  Sybaris  was  crushed  by  the  Crotoniates  more  than 
five  centuries  before  Christ.  I  was  amazed  at  this,  but  in  their 
public  library  afterward  I  found  in  Pliny  that  that  defeat  was 
known  at  Olympia  in  Greece  on  the  day  it  happened,  and  the  same 
statement  is  in  Cicero  De  Naturd  Deorum.  See  Pliny,  vii.  22  (i), 
and  compare  Plutarch  in  Paulus  j&milius,  where  he  names  four 
such  incidents, 


52  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

jolly-looking  person,  who  for  all  her  jollity  seems 
careful  and  thoughtful,  and  desirous  to  be  of  ser 
vice;  and,  without  worrying  me,  she  has  really 
made  me  very  comfortable.  She  knocked  just 
now  herself,  and  in  quite  a  studied  speech  said 
that  I  was  the  first  American  she  had  ever  had 
here ;  that  she  was  wholly  unacquainted  with  our 
customs,  but  that  she  would  be  much  obliged  to 
me  if  I  would  indicate  to  her  any  improvements 
which  the  inns  of  my  own  country  might  suggest 
to  me.  The  poor  soul  had  been  at  the  pains  to 
look  up  "  United  States  "  in  some  book  of  travels, 
and  had  even  written  to  the  Proxenus  to  ask  how 
she  should  cook  pork  and  beans  for  me,  and  what 
she  should  give  me  instead  of  salt  codfish.  He 
had  written  her  a  funny  note,  which  she  showed 
me,  in  which  he  said  that  I  should  be  satisfied  with 
pheasants  and  quails  for  a  day,  and  that  the  next 
day  he  would  tell  her. 

Experience  of  my  own  country  indeed  !  There 
was  not  a  fly  in  the  room  where  the  table  d'hote  is 
served,  nor  is  there  in  this  apartment.  This  con 
sists  of  a  pretty,  airy  sitting-room  with  a  veranda 
opening  from  it,  and  in  the  next  room  the  bed  and 
its  appurtenances.  I  found  on  the  table  pen,  ink, 
and  paper,  which  I  never  found  ready  in  my  own 
room  at  the  Brevoort ;  I  found  in  the  bedroom  a 
foot-tub,  a  shower-bath,  more  towels  than  I  could 
count,  and  hot  and  cold  water  ready  to  run  for  me. 
I  have  not  smelled  a  smell  since  I  came  into  the 
house,  excepting  the  savory  breakfast  and  dinner 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  53 

which  she  gave  me,  and  these  lovely  Italian  violets 
which  stand  on  the  writing-table ;  and,  of  course, 
my  cigar  on  the  veranda.  But  I  shall  write  no 
more.  Now  we  will  see  if  there  are  any  smooth 
rose-leaves  in  the  beds  of  Sybaris. 

That  is  the  end  of  that  day's  entry. 

The  Proxenus  came  round  to  see  me  that  first 
evening,  and  we  sat,  smoking,  on  the  piazza 
together.  I  remember  I  spoke  with  pleasure  of 
the  horse-railroad  management,  and  asked  as  to 
the  methods  they  took  to  secure  such  personal 
comfort. 

He  said  that  my  question  cut  pretty  low  down, 
for  that  the  answer  really  involved  the  study  of 
their  whole  system.  "  I  have  thought  of  it  a  good 
deal,"  said  he,  "when  I  have  been  in  St.  Peters 
burg,  and  in  England  and  America;  and  as  far  as 
I  can  find  out,  our  peculiarity  in  everything  is, 
that  we  respect  —  I  have  sometimes  thought  we 
almost  worshipped  —  the  rights,  even  the  notions 
or  whims,  of  the  individual  citizen.  With  us  the 
first  object  of  the  state,  as  an  organization,  is  to 
care  for  the  individual  citizen,  be  he  man,  woman, 
or  child.  We  consider  the  state  to  be  made  for 
the  better  and  higher  training  of  men,  much  as 
your  divines  say  that  the  Church  is.  Instead  of 
our  lumping  our  citizens,  therefore,  and  treating 
Jenny  Lind  and  Tom  Heenan  to  the  same  dose  of 
public  schooling,  —  instead  of  saying  that  what  is 
sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce  for  the  gander,  —  we 


54  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

try  to  see  that  each  individual  is  protected  in  the 
enjoyment,  not  of  what  the  majority  likes,  but  of 
what  he  chooses,  so  long  as  his  choice  injures  no 
other  man." 

I  thought,  in  one  whiff,  of  Stuart  Mill,  and  of 
the  coppersmiths. 

"  Our  horse-railroad  system  grew  out  of  this 
theory,"  continued  he.  "  As  long  ago  as  Herodo 
tus,  people  lived  here  in  houses  one  story  high, 
with  these  gardens  between.  But  some  genera 
tions  ago,  a  young  fellow  named  Apollidorus,  who 
had  been  to  Edinburgh,  pulled  down  his  father's 
house  and  built  a  block  of  what  you  call  houses  on 
the  site  of  it.  They  were  five  stories  high,  had 
basements,  and  so  on,  with  windows  fore  and  aft, 
and,  of  course,  none  on  the  sides.  The  old  fogies 
looked  aghast.  But  he  found  plenty  of  fools  to 
hire  them.  But  the  tenants  had  not  been  in  a 
week  when  the  Kategoros,  district  attorney,  had 
him  up  '  for  taking  away  from  a  citizen  what  he 
could  not  restore/  This,  you  must  know,  is  one 
of  the  severest  charges  in  our  criminal  code. 

"  Of  course,  it  was  easy  enough  to  show  that 
the  tenants  went  willingly;  he  showed  dumb 
waiters,  and  I  know  not  what  infernal  contrivances 
of  convenience  within.  But  he  could  not  show 
that  the  tenants  had  north  windows  and  south 
windows,  because  they  did  not.  The  government, 
on  their  side,  showed  that  men  were  made  to 
breathe  fresh  air,  and  that  he  could  not  ventilate 
his  houses  as  if  they  were  open  on  all  sides ;  they 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  55 

showed  that  women  were  not  made  to  climb  up 
and  down  ladders,  and  to  live  on  stages  at  the  tops 
of  them ;  and  he  tried  in  vain  to  persuade  the  jury 
that  this  climbing  was  good  for  little  children.  He 
had  lured  these  citizens  into  places  dangerous  for 
health,  growth,  strength,  and  comfort  And  so  he 
was  compelled  to  erect  a  statue  typical  of  strength, 
and  a  small  hospital  for  infants,  as  his  penalty. 
That  spirited  Hercules,  which  stands  in  front  of 
the  market,  was  a  part  of  his  fine. 

"  Of  course,  after  a  decision  like  this,  concentra 
tion  of  inhabitants  was  out  of  the  question.  Every 
pulpit  in  Sybaris  blazed  with  sermons  on  the  text, 
'  Every  man  dwelt  safely  under  his  vine  and  under 
his  fig-tree.'  Everybody  saw  that  a  house  without 
its  own  garden  was  an  abomination,  and  easy  com 
munication  with  the  suburbs  was  a  necessity. 

"  It  was,  indeed,  easy  enough  to  show,  as  the 
city  engineer  did,  that  the  power  wasted  in  lifting 
people  up,  and,  for  that  matter,  down  stairs,  in  a 
five-story  house,  in  one  day,  would  carry  all  those 
people  I  do  not  know  how  many  miles  on  a  level 
railroad  track  in  less  time.  What  you  call  horse- 
railroads,  therefore,  became  a  necessity." 

I  said  they  made  a  great  row  with  us. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  I  saw  they  did.  With  us  the 
government  owns  and  repairs  the  track,  as  you  do 
the  track  of  any  common  road.  We  never  have 
any  difficulty. 

"  You  see,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  "  with  us,  if 
a  conductor  sprains  the  ankle  of  a  citizen,  it  is  a 


56  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

matter  the  state  looks  after.  With  you,  the  citi 
zen  must  himself  be  the  prosecutor,  and  virtually 
never  is.  Did  you  notice  a  pretty  winged  Mer 
cury  outside  the  station-house  you  came  to  ?  " 

I  had  noticed  it. 

"  That  was  put  up,  I  don't  know  how  long  ago, 
in.  the  infancy  of  these  things.  They  took  a  car 
off  one  night,  without  public  notice  beforehand. 
One  old  man  was  coming  in  on  it,  to  his  daughter's 
wedding.  He  missed  his  connection  out  at  Little 
Krastis,  and  lost  half  an  hour.  Down  came  the 
Kategoros.  The  company  had  taken  from  a  citi 
zen  what  they  could  not  restore ;  namely,  half  an 
hour." 

George  lighted  another  cigar,  and  laughed  very 
heartily.  "  That 's  a  great  case  in  our  reports," 
he  said.  "The  company  ventured  to  go  to  trial 
on  it.  They  hoped  they  might  overturn  the  old 
decisions,  which  were  so  old  that  nobody  knows 
when  they  were  made,  —  as  old  as  the  dancing 
horses,"  said  he,  laughing.  "  They  said  time  was 
not  a  thing,  —  it  was  a  relation  of  ideas ;  that  it 
did  not  exist  in  heaven ;  that  they  could  not  be 
made  to  suffer  because  they  did  not  deliver  back 
what  no  man  ever  saw,  or  touched,  or  tasted. 
What  was  half  an  hour?  But  the  jury  was  piti 
less.  A  lot  of  business  men,  you  know,  —  they 
knew  the  value  of  time.  What  did  they  care  for 
the  metaphysics?  And  the  company  was  bidden 
to  put  up  an  appropriate  statue  worth  ten  talents 
in  front  of  their  station-house,  as  a  reminder  to  all 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  57 

their  people  that  a  citizen's  time  was  worth  some 
thing." 

I  observed  a  queer  thing  two  or  three  times  in 
this  visit  of  the  Proxenus.  Just  at  this  point  he 
rose  rather  suddenly  and  bade  me  good-evening. 
I  begged  him  to  stay,  but  had  to  repeat  my  invita 
tion  twice.  His  hand  was  on  the  handle  of  the  door 
before  he  turned  back.  Then  he  sat  down,  and 
we  went  on  talking;  but  before  long  he  did  the 
same  thing  again,  and  then  again. 

At  last  I  was  provoked,  and  said :  "  What  is  the 
custom  of  your  country?  Do  you  have  to  take  a 
walk  every  eleven  minutes  and  a  quarter?" 

George  laughed  again,  and  indeed  blushed.  "  Do 
you  know  what  a  bore  is?  "  said  he. 

"  Alas  !  I  do,"  said  I. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "  the  universal  custom  here  is, 
that  an  uninvited  guest,  who  calls  on  another  man 
on  his  own  business,  rises  at  the  end  of  eleven 
minutes,  and  offers  to  go.  And  the  courts  have 
ruled,  very  firmly,  that  there  must  be  a  bona  fide 
effort.  We  get  into  such  a  habit  of  it  that,  with 
you,  I  really  did  it  unawares.  The  custom  is  as  old 
as  Cleisthenes  and  his  wedding.  But  some  of  the 
decisions  are  not  more  than  two  or  three  centuries 
old,  anoj  they  are  very  funny. 

"  On  the  whole,"  he  added,  "  I  think  it  works 
well.  Of  course,  between  friends  it  is  absurd,  but 
it  is  a  great  protection  against  a  class  of  people 
who  think  their  own  concerns  are  the  only  things 
of  value.  You  see  you  have  only  to  say,  when  a 


58  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

man  comes  in,  that  you  thank  him  for  coming,  that 
you  wish  he  would  stay,  or  to  take  his  hat  or  his 
stick,  —  you  have  only  to  make  him  an  invited 
guest,  —  and  then  the  rule  does  not  hold." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  I ;  "  then  I  invite  you  to  spend 
every  evening  with  me  while  I  am  here." 

"  Take  care,"  said  he ;  "  the  Government  Almanac 
is  printed  and  distributed  gratuitously  from  the  fines 
on  bores.  Their  funds  are  getting  very  low  up  at 
the  department,  and  they  will  be  very  sharp  on 
your  friends.  So  you  need  not  be  profuse  in  your 
invitations." 

This  conversation  was  a  clew  to  a  good  many 
things  which  I  saw  while  I  was  in  the  city.  I 
never  was  in  a  place  where  there  were  so  many 
tasteful  pretty  little  conveniences  for  everybody. 
At  the  quadrants,  where  the  streets  cross,  there 
was  always  a  pretty  little  sheltered  seat  for  four  or 
five  people,  —  shaded,  stuffed,  dry,  and  always  the 
morning  and  evening  papers,  and  an  advertisement 
of  the  times  of  boats  and  trains,  for  any  one  who 
might  be  waiting  for  a  car  or  for  a  friend.  Some 
times  these  were  votive  offerings,  where  public  spirit 
had  spoken  in  gratitude.  More  often  they  had 
been  ordered  at  the  cost  of  some  one  who  had 
taken  from  a  citizen  what  he  could  not  repay. 
The  private  citizen  might  often  hesitate  about 
prosecuting  a  bore,  or  a  nuisance,  or  a  conceited 
company  officer.  But  the  Kategoroi  made  no 
bones  about  it.  They  called  the  citizen  as  a  wit- 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  59 

ness,  and  gave  the  criminal  a  reminder  which 
posterity  held  in  awe.  Their  point,  as  they  always 
explained  it  to  me,  is,  that  the  citizen's  health  and 
strength  are  essential  to  the  state.  The  state  can 
not  afford  to  have  him  maimed,  any  more  than  it 
can  afford  to  have  him  drunk  or  ignorant.  The 
individual,  of  course,  cannot  be  following  up  his 
separate  grievances  with  people  who  abridge  his 
rights.  But  the  public  accuser  can  and  does. 

With  us,  public  servants,  who  know  they  are 
public  servants,  are  always  obliging  and  civil.  I 
would  not  ask  better  treatment  in  my  own  home 
than  I  am  sure  of  in  Capitol,  State-House,  or  City 
Hall.  It  is  only  when  you  get  to  some  miserable 
sub-bureau,  where  the  servant  of  the  servant  of  a 
creature  of  the  state  can  bully  you,  that  you  come 
to  grief.  For  instance,  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
just  now  forbids  corporations  to  work  children  more 
than  ten  hours  a  day.  The  corporations  obey. 
But  the  overseers  in  the  rooms  whom  the  cor 
porations  employ,  work  children  eleven  hours,  or 
as  many  as  they  choose.  They  would  not  stand 
that  in  Sybaris. 

Such  were  my  first  day's  observations.  I  now 
resume  the  Journal  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

Friday •,  9th  Kal.  ®apyr]\ia)v.  —  Everything  seems 
to  be  new  here.  Place,  language,  and  all  are 
changed,  —  and  so  my  old  book  for  these  mem 
oranda  gave  out  last  night,  and  I  have  had  to 
rummage  up  another  from  my  stores.  Fortunately 


60  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

the  traps  came  up  from  the  boat  even  before  I  was 
awake  this  morning.  One  does  sleep  well  in  such 
a  bed,  —  without  steam-whistles  or  cockerels  or 
brass-founders.  It  was  as  quiet  as  the  mid-country. 

The  calendar  is  as  new  as  the  book  (of  which 
the  paper  is  not  half  as  good  as  the  old  was).  It 
seems  an  odd  mixture  of  Italian  and  Greek,  and  I 
do  not  yet  understand  it.  But  I  put  at  the  top  of 
the  page  what  the  Proxenus  tells  me  to,  were  it 
only  for  practice.  This  is,  he  says,  the  ninth  of  the 
Kalends  of  Thargelion,  but  he  counts  it  Friday,  as 
I  did.  For  my  part,  I  thought  the  Greeks  had  no 
Kalends;  but  it  would  seem  that  the  Sybarites 
have. 

It  has  been  a  rainy  day,  but  I  have  managed  with 
their  convenient  arrangements  here  to  do  about  ten 
times  as  much  as  I  should  have  done  at  home.  If 
I  do  not  get  too  sleepy,  I  will  go  into  a  little  more 
detail  than  I  have  been  apt  to  do  since  the  cam 
paign  began.  The  peculiarity  of  this  place  seems 
to  be  that  everybody  has  plenty  of  time. 

I  slept  late  after  the  excitement  of  the  night 
before,  and  if  the  lady  Myrtis's  nice  mattresses 
are  made  of  rose-leaves,  none  of  the  leaves  were 
crumpled.  I  rang,  as  I  had  been  bidden,  as  soon 
as  I  woke ;  and  a  ravishing  cup  of  coffee  appeared 
almost  on  the  moment,  on  the  strength  of  which  I 
dressed  slowly,  and  went  down  to  the  table  d'hote. 
Breakfast  was  very  nicely  served;  but  I  do  not 
stop  to  describe  it,  because  some  rainy  day  I  will 
make  a  chapter  on  the  cookery  of  Sybaris,  so  dif- 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  61 

ferent  from  that  of  our  Sicilian  allies ;  alas  !  so  dif 
ferent  from  the  taverns  of  my  beloved  New  England. 
While  I  was  at  breakfast  there  came  in  this  clever 
little  note  in  this  pretty  Greek  Handschrift  from  the 
Proxenus,  whose  name,  it  appears,  is  George :  — 

[Translation.] 

OFFICE  OF  THE  PROXENUS, 
Sybaris,  Qth  Kal.  Thar. 

COLONEL  INGHAM,  &c.,  &c. :  — 

DEAR  SIR,  —  The  report  from  Pylades,  chief  of  boat- 
builders,  is  that  your  boat  will  require  a  new  stern-post  as 
well  as  rudder,  and  that  one  whole  streak  on  her  larboard 
side  must  be  renewed.  She  was  ordered  to  the  govern 
ment  works  last  night,  and  the  men  undoubtedly  went  to 
work  on  her  this  morning. 

I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  calling  on  you  at  seven 
minutes  after  noon,  when  I  shall  be  relieved  from  office 
duty  here.  If  you  have  no  pleasanter  engagement,  let 
me  take  you  in  my  carriage  to  see  our  granite  quarries 
and  to  bathe.  We  can  do  this  before  dinner.  My  wife 
will  be  very  happy  if  you  will  join  our  family  party  at  four. 
Farewell, 

GEORGE,  the  Proxenus. 

What  his  other  name  is,  I  do  not  yet  know. 
They  seem  to  sign  like  English  bishops. 

I  strayed  round  a  little  before  noon,  and  made  a 
little  sketch  of  a  seat  for  passengers  waiting  for  the 
street  railroad  cars.  At  twelve  I  rendered  myself 
on  the  hotel  veranda,  and  at  seven  minutes  past 
the  Proxenus  drove  up  in  a  pretty  covered  buggy, 


62  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

with  a  nice  little  trotting  mare.  He  apologized 
for  the  cover;  said  if  the  day  had  been  fine  he 
could  have  shown  me  more  of  the  country,  but  as 
it  rained,  why,  we  must  e'en  bear  it  as  we  could. 

We  drove  first  to  the  granite  quarries,  which  are 
worked  with  great  precision  by  a  fine-looking  set 
of  men,  who  have  much  more  of  the  Lombard,  not 
to  say  Yankee,  look  about  them  in  their  prompt 
ness  of  movement  than  I  have  seen  anywhere  else 
in  Southern  Italy.  Then  the  Proxenus  asked  me 
if  I  were  used  to  swimming  as  early  as  this  in  the 
season.  When  I  said  there  were  few  seasons  and 
few  waters  in  which  I  did  not  swim,  and  that  I 
should  greatly  enjoy  a  plunge,  he  turned  his 
horse's  head,  and  we  drove,  by  a  charming  up-and- 
down-hill  drive,  I  should  think  six  miles,  down  the 
old  course  of  the  Crastis  River  till  we  came  to  a 
signal-station,  —  what  one  might  call  Watch  Hill, 
—  where  was  a  beautiful  view  of  the  gulf,  grand 
bluffs,  smooth  beaches,  and  a  fine  surf  for  bathers. 
It  almost  seemed  as  if  we  had  been  expected.  A 
quaint  old  fisherman  fastened  the  horse  to  a  fence, 
provided  towels,  pointed  out  two  little  sheds  for 
undressing,  and  we  had  a  brisk  swim  in  the  surf. 
How  delicious  this  Mediterranean  water  is,  swept 
off  the  Syrtes  by  that  tremendous  Euroclydon  !  I 
hardly  thought  yesterday  morning  that  I  should 
be  speaking  of  it  so  good-naturedly. 

Home  to  dinner.  The  Proxenus  said  his  wife 
would  excuse  my  frock-coat.  And  at  his  house,  at 
dinner,  and  in  the  garden,  and  on  the  veranda,  I 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  63 

have  stayed  ever  since,  till  now.  The  family  was 
charming, — his  wife  sweet  pretty  (reminds  you  of 

S G ),  and  seven  children,  —  four  boys, 

three  girls,  —  my  friend  James,  who  showed  me 
the  way  yesterday,  being  the  second  son.  He  and 
I  are  great  friends,  and  his  father  says  I  may  take 
him  from  the  office  any  day  when  I  want  a  guide. 
The  girls  have  pretty  Greek  faces,  —  the  youngest 
about  as  big  as  little  Fan-fan,  only  her  name  is 
Anna,  say  nine  years  old. 

As  for  the  dinner,  I  leave  that  till  I  can  write  the 
essay  on  cookery  into  which  the  breakfast  is  to  go. 
But  I  do  not  wonder  that  that  old  fellow  took  his 
cooks  with  him  when  he  went  from  here  to  Athens. 

It  was  not  exactly  the  family  party  which  the 
note  promised.  The  Chief  Justice  was  there  — 
who,  if  I  understand,  is  the  cousin  of  my  hostess, 
—  and  his  pretty  wife ;  a  young  man  named 
Joannes  Isocrates,  whom  I  accused  of  being  a 
great-grandson  of  the  orator;  and  Philip,  the 
brother  of  the  Proxenus.  It  was  a  round  table  for 
twelve.  Some  of  the  children  had  to  sit  at  a  side 
table,  and  they  were  very  merry  there. 

The  talk  was  very  ready  and  free,  —  generally 
general;  but  sometimes  I  got  off  into  a  separate 
private  talk  with  Kleone  —  as  I  shall  begin  to  call 
George's  wife  —  and  with  the  Chief  Justice's  wife. 
Her  husband  calls  her  Lois.  We  sat  long  at  table, 
spending  more  than  half  the  time  over  the  fruit 
and  coffee.  There  was  no  wine.  The  dessert, 
however,  had  been  served  in  another  room  than 


64  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

that  we  ate  the  meats  in.  We  passed  from  room 
to  room,  as  we  used  to  when  we  dined  with  How- 
qua,  at  Canton.  And  in  the  new  room  we  did  not 
take  the  same  places  as  before. 

I  said,  in  the  course  of  talk,  that  either  they 
were  all  very  much  at  leisure  here,  or  that  I  had 
taken  an  unconscionable  amount  of  George's 
time.  .  .  . 

He  laughed,  and  said  he  could  well  believe  that, 
as  I  had  said  that  I  was  brought  up  in  Boston. 
"  When  I  was  there,"  said  he,  "  I  could  see  that 
your  people  were  all  hospitable  enough,  but  that 
the  people  who  were  good  for  anything  were  made 
to  do  all  the  work  of  the  vauriens,  and  really  had 
no  time  for  friendship  or  hospitality.  I  remember 
an  historian  of  yours,  who  crossed  with  me,  said 
that  there  should  be  a  motto  stretched  across 
Boston  Bay,  from  one  fort  to  another,  with  the 
words,  '  No  admittance,  except  on  business.' " 

I  did  not  more  than  half  like  this  chaffing  at 
Boston,  and  asked  how  they  managed  things.1 

"  Why,  you  see,"  said  he,  "  we  hold  pretty  stiffly 
to  the  old  Charondian  laws,  of  which  perhaps  you 
know  something ;  here  's  a  copy  of  the  code,  if  you 
would  like  to  look  over  it,"  and  he  took  one  out 
of  his  pocket.  "  We  are  still  very  chary  about 
amendments  to  statutes,  so  that  very  little  time  is 
spent  in  legislation  ;  we  have  no  bills  at  shops,  and 
but  little  debt,  and  that  is  all  on  honor,  so  that 
there  is  not  much  account-keeping  or  litigation ; 

1  I  am  afraid  this  was  Mr.  Motley.  —  E.  E.  H. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  65 

you  know  what  happens  to  gossips,  —  gossip  takes 
a  good  deal  of  time  elsewhere,  —  and  somehow 
everybody  does  his  share  of  work,  so  that  all  of  us 
do  have  a  good  deal  of  what  you  call  '  leisure.' 
Whether,"  he  added  pensively,  "  in  a  world  God 
put  us  into  that  we  might  love  each  other,  and 
learn  to  love,  —  whether  the  time  we  spend  in  so 
ciety,  or  the  time  we  spend  caged  behind  our  office 
desks,  is  the  time  which  should  be  called  devoted 
to  the  '  business  of  life/  that  remains  to  be  seen." 

"  How  came  you  to  Boston,"  said  I,  "  and 
when?" 

"  Oh,  we  all  have  to  travel,"  said  George,  "  if  we 
mean  to  go  into  the  administration.  And  I  liked 
administration.  I  observe  that  you  appoint  a  for 
eign  ambassador  because  he  can  make  a  good 
stump  speech  in  Kentucky.  But,  since  Charondas's 
time,  training  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  our  system. 
And  no  man  could  offer  himself  here  to  serve  on 
the  school  committee  unless  he  knew  how  other 
nations  managed  their  schools." 

"Not  if  he  had  himself  made  school-books?" 
said  I. 

"  No  !  "  laughed  George,  "  for  he  might  introduce 
them.  With  us  no  professor  may  teach  from  a 
text-book  he  has  made  himself,  unless  the  highest 
council  of  education  order  it ;  and  on  the  same 
principle  we  should  never  choose  a  bookseller  on 
the  school  committee.  And  so,  to  go  back,"  he 
said,  "  when  my  father  found  that  administration 
was  my  passion,  he  sent  me  on  the  grand  tour.  I 

5 


66  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

learned  a  great  deal  in  America,  and  am  very  fond 
of  the  Americans.  But  I  never  saw  one  here  be 
fore." 

I  did  not  ask  what  he  learned  in  America,  for  I 
was  more  anxious  to  learn  myself  how  they  admin 
istered  government  in  Sybaris. 

The  Chief  Justice  said  that  he  thought  George 
hardly  answered  my  question.  He  said  that  their 
system  compelled  everybody  to  do  what  he  could 
do  best,  and  to  a  large  extent  secured  this  by  in 
viting  people  to  do  what  they  could  do  best.  A 
messenger  in  a  public  office,  for  instance,  is  invari 
ably  a  man  who  has  legs  and  a  tongue,  but  who  has 
no  arms.  That  is,  if  such  a  place  is  vacant,  search  is 
at  once  made  for  some  person  who  shall  fill  this 
place  well  ;  and  if  he  can  show  that  there  is  no 
other  place  he  can  fill,  on  that  showing  he  is  almost 
sure  of  the  appointment.  "  We  have  not  a  copy 
ing  clerk  in  the  Court  House,"  said  the  Chief  Justice, 
"  who  has  two  legs.  Most  of  them,  in  fact,  have  no 
tongues,  which  is  a  convenience."  Starting  from 
this,  as  George  had  said,  it  followed  that  there  were 
no  vauriensy  and  of  course  the  amount  of  work  fell 
lighter  on  each.  But  this  is  not  the  whole.  Custom 
in  part,  statute  in  part,  and  in  part  this  terrible 
verdict  which  they  all  so  dread,  —  the  verdict  of 
they  call  it,1  —  have  so  wrought  on  them 


1  The  verdict  of  apiray/j.6s  is  that  alluded  to  above.  It  is  given 
on  an  indictment  brought  by  the  state's  attorney  in  a  criminal 
court.  It  means,  "  He  has  taken  from  a  citizen  what  he  cannot 
restore."  The  derivation  reminds  one  of  our  action  of  assumpsit, 
but  they  carry  it  further  than  we  do. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  67 

that  they  destroy  very  little  which  they  have  once 
created.  "  Time  will  do  that  for  us,"  said  Philip, 
laughing.  "  My  rear  wall  tumbles  down  fast  enough 
without  my  helping  the  fall." 

I  said  I  remembered  that  Judge  Merrick  said 
that,  if  the  thousand  million  men  now  in  the  world 
could  be  set  to  work  in  intelligent  organized  labor, 
they  could  in  a  generation  duplicate  the  present 
monuments  of  the  race  of  men.  The  existing  farms, 
roads,  bridges,  ships,  piers,  cities,  villages,  and  all 
the  rest,  could  be  produced  in  one  generation.  All 
the  other  generations  have  been  spent  in  men's 
cutting  each  other's  throats,  and  in  destroying  what 
other  people  have  been  at  work  upon. 

The  Chief  Justice  said  this  was  undoubtedly 
true.  They  tried  as  far  as  they  could  to  prevent 
such  waste  of  life,  and  to  a  large  extent  he  thought 
they  succeeded.  The  solidity  of  their  building  is 
such  that  they  have  dwelling-houses  which  have 
been  occupied  as  such  for  two  thousand  years. 

I  said  that  in  London  they  had  told  me  their 
houses  tumbled  down  in  eighty. 

"  Exactly,"  said  the  Chief  Justice,  "  and  what  a 
waste  that  is!  When  my  father  was  in  London, 
they  were  greatly  delighted  with  a  system  of  sewers 
they  had  just  turned  into  the  Thames.  When  I 
was  there,  they  were  as  much  delighted,  because 
they  had  discovered  a  method  of  leading  their  con 
tents  away  from  the  Thames." 

"  When  my  father  was  in  Boston,"  said  George, 
"  they  were  all  very  proud  to  show  him  their  success 


68  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

in  digging  down  their  highest  hill.  When  I  was 
there  they  were  building  it  up  to  the  old  height,  to 
make  a  reservoir  on  top  of  it."  1 

"  We  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  said  the 
Chief  Justice,  "that  it  is  rather  dangerous  interfer 
ing  much  with  nature.  That  is  to  say,  when  a 
large  body  of  men  have  nestled  down  in  a  region, 
it  was  probably  about  what  they  wanted.  If  one  of 
them  tries  to  mend,  he  is  apt  t6  mar.  We  had  a 
fellow  over  on  the  Crastis  there,  who  was  stingy 
about  using  steam-power;  so  he  made  a  great 
high  dam  on  the  river, —  and,  by  Jupiter,  Colonel 
Ingham,  five  hundred  thousand  people  lost  their 
fish  because  that  fellow  chose  to  spin  cotton  a 
millionth  part  of  a  drachma  cheaper  than  the  rest. 

"  He  got  dpTrary/Aos  with  a  vengeance,"  growled 
Philip,  who  is  a  little  touchy. 

"  He  got  a/07ra7/409,"  said  the  Chief  Justice,  "  and 
he  had  to  put  in  fish-ways.  You  must  take  our 
friend  out  to  see  the  fish  go  up  his  stairways, 
George.  But  what  happened  at  Paestum  was  worse 
than  that.  They  had  some  salt  marshes  there,  — 
what  they  call  flats.  They  undertook  to  fill  them 
up  so  as  to  get  land  in  place  of  water.  They  got 
more  than  they  bargained  for.  They  disturbed  the 
natural  flow  of  the  currents,  and  they  lost  their 
harbor.  Land  is  plenty  in  Paestum  now.  The 
last  time  I  was  there  the  population  was  two  owls 
and  four  lizards,  and  there  was  never  a  rose  within 
five  miles ! 

1  Since  1879  theY  ^ave  pulled  this  down.  —  E.  E.  H.,  1900. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  69 

I  called  him  back  to  talk  of  this  universal  occu 
pation,  resulting  in  universal  leisure.  He  said  I 
should  understand  it  better  after  I  had  been  about 
a  little.  I  said  we  had  difficulty  at  both  ends,  — 
the  poorest  people  did  not  know  how  to  work,  and 
the  richest  people  were  apt  not  to  want  to,  and 
did  not  know  what  to  do.  I  said  I  was  at  one  time 
secretary  of  the  "  Society  for  providing  Occupation 
for  the  Higher  Classes."  He  said,  as  to  the  first 
they  clung  to  the  old  apprenticeship  system. 
Every  child  must  be  taught  to  do  something.  If 
the  parents  cannot  teach,  somebody  else  does. 
The  other  difficulty  he  ha,d  seen  in  travelling,  but 
he  did  not  believe  it  was  necessary.  They  have 
here  but  few  very  large  fortunes  transmitted  from 
father  to  son.  They  have  no  such  transmission  by 
will,  and  unless  a  man  has  given  away  his  property 
before  his  death  the  state  becomes  his  executor. 
Of  course  in  practice,  except  in  cases  of  sudden 
death,  people  are  their  own  executors.  Then  they 
give  every  man  and  woman  who  is  over  sixty-five 
a  small  pension,  —  enough  to  save  anybody  from 
absolute  want.  They  insist  on  it  that  this  is  the 
most  convenient  arrangement.  They  know  almost 
nothing  of  drunkenness ;  and  what  follows  is,  that 
everybody  does  something  somewhere. 

As  the  chief  explained  this  to  me,  I  saw  his  wife 
and  Philip  were  laughing  about  something,  and 
when  the  learned  talk  was  done  Philip  made  her 
tell  me  what  it  was.  It  was  the  story  of  one  of  their 
attempts  to  save  time,  which  had  not  succeeded  so 


70  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

well.  Two  or  three  enterprising  fellows,  in  those 
arts  which  rank  as  the  disagreeable  necessities, 
went  into  partnership,  offering  to  their  customers 
the  saving  of  time  gained  by  getting  through  the 
minor  miseries  together.  You  sat  in  a  chair  to 
have  your  hair  cut,  and  a  dentist  at  the  same 
time  filled  your  teeth.1  Then  you  were  permitted 
at  the  same  time  to  have  any  man  up  who  wanted 
to  read  his  poems  to  you,  and  you  could  hear  them 
as  you  sat.  While  the  dentist  was  rolling  up  the 
gold,  they  had  a  photograph  man  ready  to  take  your 
likeness.  Lois  declared  she  would  show  me  a  like 
ness  of  her  husband  that  was  so  savage  she  was 
sure  it  was  taken  there.  But  of  course  this  was 
running  the  thing  into  the  ground.  It  was  only 
an  exaggeration,  and  did  not  last  after  the  novelty 
was  gone. 

I  said  they  certainly  had  got  the  right  men  in 
the  right  places  in  administration,  as  far  as  I  had 
seen,  bowing  to  the  Proxenus. 

He  parried  the  compliment  by  pretending  to 
think  I  meant  the  railroad  people,  and  said  I  was 
right  there,  that  they  had  a  very  good  staff  in  the 
transportation  department. 

I  said  that  we  had  tried  the  experiment,  in  some 
cases,  of  placing  idiots  in  charge  of  the  minor  rail 
way  stations,  and  to  drive  the  little  railway  cabs  or 
flies  from  such  stations.  He  said  he  had  observed 
this  in  America,  but  he  should  not  think  it  would 

1  I  believe  a  part  of  that  plan  was  to  have  a  chiropodist  look  at 
your  feet ;  but  at  table  they  did  not  speak  of  that. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  71 

work  well.  I  said  the  passengers  generally  knew 
what  they  wanted,  —  that  we  had  an  excellent  class 
of  men  as  train  conductors,  and  that  these  idiots 
must  be  put  somewhere.  Yes,  he  said,  but  that 
you  never  could  tell  what  station  might  be  impor 
tant  ;  that  I  might  depend  upon  it,  it  was  cheaper 
in  the  long  run  to  have  a  man  competent  for  the 
full  conceivable  duty  of  the  place,  even  if  we  had 
to  pay  him  something  more. 

About  eight  o'clock  I  bowed  myself  out.  George 
walked  home  with  me,  and  again  we  had  a  cigar 
on  the  veranda.  They  raise  their  own  tobacco,  in 
some  cross  valleys  they  have,  running  east  and 
west,  and  the  cigars  are  splendid,  —  real  Vuelta 
d'Abajo,  I  should  have  thought  them.  But,  of 
course,  under  such  laws,  no  man  can  smoke  in 
the  streets  or  in  a  crowd. 

Saturday,  ®apyr]\ia)v,  8th  Kal.  —  A  fine  day. 
But  I  find  one  does  not  rise  very  early  in  the 
morning. 

Spent  the  morning  from  nine  to  twelve  with  the 
Chief  Justice  in  court.  Business  very  prompt,  very 
interesting,  of  which  more  at  another  time.  I  have 
full  notes  of  all  the  cases,  in  the  printed  briefs 
which  the  Judge  gave  me.  At  twelve  the  court 
closed  with  absolute  promptness.  All  their  public 
offices  of  administration  work  four  public  hours,  as 
they  say.  But  an  office  where  one  calls  for  infor 
mation  —  as  the  Post-Office,  the  Public  Library, 
or  any  of  the  charities  —  is  open  night  and  day  the 


72  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

century  round  The  Public  Library  has  not  been 
closed,  they  say,  since  Herodotus  wrote  there. 
They  showed  me  his  pen,  and  the  place  where  he 
sat.  This  seems  a  little  mythical.  Of  course  the 
same  people  are  not  on  duty.  But  they  say  there 
is  no  harm  in  changing  clerks  on  duty.  There  can 
be  no  secrets  then,  no  false  accounts,  no  peculation, 
and  no  ruts.  At  all  events,  they  say  that  if  a  man 
chooses  to  go  and  read  at  three  in  the  morning,  he 
has  a  right  to ;  and  that  the  Post-Office  is  estab 
lished  for  the  convenience  of  the  citizen,  and  not 
for  that  of  the  clerks,  which  certainly  seems  true. 
The  Chief  Justice,  at  twelve,  said  he  was  at  my 
service ;  and  at  my  request  he  took  me  to  the  Pub 
lic  Library,  where  we  spent  a  couple  of  hours,  — 
of  which  at  another  time.  We  then  called  at  his 
house,  where  we  found  his  wife  and  daughters  just 
entering  their  carriage.  We  did  not  leave  his 
little  wagon,  but  all  drove  off  together.  The  ob 
ject  was  again  a  bath,  with  a  chowder  and  fish 
dinner  at  a  little  extemporized  seashore  place. 
The  drive  was  charming,  and  the  bath  Elysium. 
The  ladies  bathed  with  us.  I  complimented  Mrs. 
Lois,  as  I  led  her  down  into  the  surf,  on  their 
punctuality,  saying  that  they  had  not  kept  us 
waiting  an  instant.  But  she  hardly  understood  me. 
"  Why  should  we  have  kept  you  ?  "  said  she.  "  I 
had  a  despatch  at  noon  from  my  husband,  propos 
ing  that  we  should  all  start  at  two."  And  when  I 
asked  if  they  had  been  waiting,  "  Why  should  we 
have  been  waiting?"  said  she.  "We  all  knew  you 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  73 

were  not  to  be  at  home  before  two."  The  Chief 
Justice  laughed  and  said  :  "  People  are  so  used  to 
punctuality  here,  that  Lois,  who  is  a  home-body, 
hardly  knows  what  you  are  talking  about.  The 
truth  is,  that,  if  she  had  kept  you  thirty  seconds, 
while  she  went  back  for  her  gloves,  she  would  have 
been  afraid  of  dpTray/jids ;  and  these  girls,  —  why, 
if  one  of  their  watches  had  been  a  twenty-thou 
sandth  part  of  a  second  wrong  when  the  ball  fell  at 
noon  to-day,  I  should  have  had  no  peace  till  I  had 
bought  such  a  love  of  a  diamond-mounted  little 
repeater  that  there  is  at  Archippus's."  And  he 
laughed  at  his  joke  heartily,  and  the  girls  said,  "  Oh, 
papa !  " 

Girls  and  boys,  men  and  women,  all  swim  like 
fishes,  —  taught  at  a  very  early  age.  No  scholar 
is  permitted  to  go  forward  in  any  school  after 
seven  years  of  age,  unless  he  can  swim,  just  as  we 
require  vaccination.  "  If  you  mean  to  be  at  the 
charge  of  training  them,"  said  the  Chief  Justice, 
"  it  is  a  pity  to  have  them  drowned,  just  when 
they  are  fit  for  anything."  And  so  we  had  a 
brisk,  jolly  swim,  and  dressed,  and  went  to  old 
Strepsiades's  little  cabin,  where  were  fish  baked, 
fish  broiled,  fish  cooked  in  every  which  way  con 
ceivable,  hot  from  the  coals,  and  we  with  the  real 
sea  appetite.  We  lounged  round  on  the  bluffs  and 
shore  for  an  hour  or  two,  the  girls  sketched  and 
botanized  a  little,  and  by  another  pretty  drive  we 
came  home.  I  took  a  cup  of  tea  with  them,  came 
back  here  to  dress,  and  they  then  called  for  me 


74  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

and  took  me  to  a  pretty  dancing-party.  But  I  am 
too  tired  to  write  it  out  to-night.  Xcupe. 

Sunday,  7th  Kal.  Tharg.  —  We  have  a  lovely 
morning.  I  have  this  pretty  little  note  from  the 
charming  Kleone,  asking  me  whether  I  will  go 
to  their  little  parish  church  or  to  the  more  grand 
cathedral  service.  Of  course  I  have  elected  the 
parish  church  with  them  at  eleven.  Meanwhile, 
I  seize  this  half-hour  to  fill  out  one  or  two  gaps 
above. 

I  see  I  have  said  nothing  about  their  going  and 
coming.  The  sidewalks  are  all  well  laid ;  and  I 
have  thus  far  been  nowhere  where,  on  one  side  of 
the  way  at  least,  there  was  not  one  in  perfect 
order.  But  I  can  see  that  they  are  very  much 
tempted  not  to  walk;  and  I  think  they  get  their 
exercise  more  in  rowing,  swimming,  riding,  drill, 
and  so  on.  This  shows  itself  in  the  fine  chests  of 
boys  and  girls,  men  and  women.  Not  only  are 
the  public  conveyances  admirable,  and  dog-cheap, 
—  very  rapid  too,  so  that  you  feel  as  if  you  could 
hardly  afford  to  walk,  —  but  they  have  any  num 
ber  of  little  steam  dog-carts,  which  run  on  the 
public  rail,  or,  if  necessary,  on  the  hard  macadam 
road.  The  fuel  is  naphtha,  or  what  we  call  petro 
leum  ;  the  engines  are  really  high  pressure,  but 
the  discharge-pipe  opens  into  a  chamber  kept 
very  cold  by  freezing  mixtures,  which  you  can 
change  at  any  inn.  Philip,  who  told  me  about 
these  things,  says  they  are  used,  not  so  much  as 
being  better  than  horses,  but  as  an  economy  for 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  75 

that  immense  class  of  people  who  keep  no  ser 
vants,  do  not  choose  to  be  slaves  to  a  coachman, 
have  no  one  to  care  for  a  horse,  or  indeed  do  not 
want  the  bother.  This  little  steam-wagon  stands 
in  a  shed  at  the  back  of  the  house.  Whoever  fills 
the  other  lamps  fills  and  trims  the  wicks  of  their 
burners.  When  you  sit  down  to  breakfast,  you 
light  the  lamps.  And  when  your  breakfast  is  done, 
steam  is  up,  and  you  can  drive  directly  to  your 
store  or  office.  While  you  are  there,  it  stands  a 
month  if  you  choose,  and  is  a  bill  of  expense  to 
nobody.  It  gives  the  roads  a  very  brisk  look  to 
see  these  little  things  spinning  along  everywhere. 
The  party  last  night  was  charming  in  the  fresh 
ness  and  variety  and  ease  of  the  whole  thing.  I 
hope  the  host  and  hostess  enjoyed  it  as  much  as 
I  did,  and  they  seemed  to.  How  queer  the  effect 
of  this  individuality  is  when  you  come  to  see  it  in 
costume !  Of  course  the  whole  thing  was  Greek. 
You  saw  that,  from  the  girls'  faces  down  to  the 
buckles  of  their  slippers.  But  then  the  individual 
right,  to  which  everything  I  have  seen  in  Sybaris 
seems  dedicated,  appeared  all  through,  and  fairly 
made  the  whole  seem  like  a  fancy  ball.  If  I 
thought  of  Cell's  Greek  costumes,  it  was  only 
to  think  how  he  would  have  stared  if  anybody 
had  told  him  that  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from 
Naples,  would  he  only  risk  the  cutting  of  his 
throat  by  brigands,  he  might  see  the  thing  illus 
trated  so  prettily.  I  danced  with .  Philip  has 

come  to  take  me  to  church. 


76  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Finished  the  same  evening.  —  It  was  a  pretty 
little  church,  —  quite  open  and  airy  it  would  seem 
to  us, — excellent  chance  to  see  dancing  vines,  or 
flying  birds,  or  falling  rains,  or  other  "  meteors 
outside,"  if  the  preacher  proved  dull  or  the  hymns 
undevout.  But  I  found  my  attention  was  well 
held  within.  Not  that  the  preaching  was  anything 
to  be  repeated.  The  sermon  was  short,  unpre 
tending,  but  alive  and  devout.  It  was  a  sonnet, 
all  on  one  theme ;  that  theme  pressed,  and  pressed, 
and  pressed,  again,  and  of  a  sudden  the  preacher 
was  done.  "  You  say  you  know  God  loves  you," 
he  said.  "  I  hope  you  do,  but  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  once  more  that  he  loves  you,  and  once  more 
and  once  more."  What  pleased  me  in  it  all  was 
a  certain  unity  of  service,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  The  congregation's  singing  seemed  to 
suggest  the  prayer;  the  prayer  seemed  to  con 
tinue  in  the  symphony  of  the  organ ;  and  while 
I  was  in  revery,  the  organ  ceased ;  but  as  it  was 
ordered,  the  sermon  took  up  the  theme  of  my 
revery,  and  so  that  one  theme  ran  through  the 
whole.  The  service  was  not  ten  things,  like  the 
ten  parts  of  a  concert,  it  was  one  act  of  communion 
or  worship.  Part  of  this  was  due,  I  guess,  to  this, 
that  we  were  in  a  small  church,  sitting  or  kneeling 
near  each  other,  close  enough  to  get  the  feeling 
of  communion,  —  not  parted,  indeed,  in  any  way. 
We  had  been  talking  together,  as  we  stood  in  the 
churchyard  before  the  service  began,  and  when 
we  assembled  in  the  church  the  sense  of  sympathy 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  77 

continued.  I  told  Kleone  that  I  liked  the  home 
feeling  of  the  church,  and  she  was  pleased.  She 
said  she  was  afraid  I  should  have  preferred  the 
cathedral.  There  were  four  large  cathedrals,  open, 
as  the  churches  were,  to  all  the  town ;  and  all  the 
clergy,  of  whatever  order,  took  turns  in  conducting 
the  service  in  them.  There  were  seven  successive 
services  in  each  of  them  that  Sunday.  But  each 
clergyman  had  his  own  special  charge  beside,  — 
I  should  think  of  not  more  than  a  hundred  fam 
ilies.  And  these  families,  generally  neighbors  in 
the  town  indeed,  seemed,  naturally  enough,  to  grow 
into  very  familiar  personal  relations  with  each  other. 
Father  Thomas,  as  they  all  call  him,  took  me 
home  to  his  house  to  dinner.  He  had  one  of  those 
little  steam-wagons  which  I  have  described,  of 
which  there  were  sixty-five  standing  in  the  grounds 
around  the  church.  His  wife  and  children  went 
home  in  a  large  one.  As  soon  as  the  doxology 
was  sung  and  the  benediction  pronounced,  the 
sexton  went  round  with  a  lantern  and  lighted  their 
lamps,  and  while  we  stood  round  talking  in  the 
porch,  the  steam  was  got  up,  so  that  I  suppose 
everybody  was  off  in  twenty  minutes.  Father 
Thomas  said  the  talk  then  and  there,  in  the  church 
and  in  the  porch,  was  one  of  the  most  satisfactory 
parts  of  the  whole  service,  and  was  pleased  when 
I  quoted  firj  e<y/caTa\ei7rovTes  rrjv  eTriavvaycoyrjv 
eavrwv.1  I  said  I  had  never  heard  the  Greek  of 
the  Greek  Testament  read  in  service  before.  He 

1  "  Not  forsaking  the  assembling  of  ourselves  together." 


78  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

said  that  the  people  all  followed,  with  entire  interest 
and  understanding  of  it,  though  it  is  not  as  near 
their  Greek  as  our  Bible  is  to  modern  English,  and 
probably  never  would  be.  For  they  regard  their 
Greek  as  being  better  than  the  Attic  Greek  of 
Demosthenes's  time,  —  and  of  course  they  will  not 
cede  an  inch  toward  the  Alexandrianisms  of  late 
centuries.  "Indeed,"  said  he,  uthe  Academy  and 
the  Aristarchs  are  a  deal  too  stiff  about  it.  They 
are  very  hard  on  us  theologues,  and  seem  to 
me  absurd." 

Father  Thomas's  house  is  one  such  as  they  say 
there  are  a  great  many  of,  which  show  their  only 
concession  to  a  community  system.  With  all  this 
intense  individualism,  one  can  see  that  Robert 
Owen  would  hang  himself  here.  But  Father 
Thomas  says  this  arrangement  works  well,  and  is 
a  great  economy  both  in  time  and  money.  Four 
houses,  each  with  its  half-acre  garden,  standing 
near  each  other,  there  is  built,  just  on  the  corner 
where  the  lots  meet,  a  central  house,  —  pea-oiicia, 
they  call  it,  —  for  the  common  purposes  of  the 
four.  There  is  one  kitchen,  and  they  unite  in 
hiring  one  cook,  who  gets  up  all  the  meals  for  the 
four  several  families  in  their  own  homes,  accord 
ing  to  their  several  directions.  There  is  one 
large  play-room  for  the  children.  I  asked  if  there 
were  one  nurse ;  but  he  said,  not  generally,  though 
families  settled  that  as  they  chose.  What  he  laid 
most  stress  on  was  one  book-room  or  library  for 
the  four.  And  certainly  this  was  a  lovely  room. 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  79 

There  were  four  bookcases,  —  one  on  each  side, — 
which  held  severally  the  books  of  the  four  families. 
All  Father  Thomas's  were  together.  But,  in  the 
long  run,  it  happened  that  none  of  them  duplicated 
the  other's  books,  so  far  as  they  kept  them  in  this 
room.  There  would  be  but  one  Herodotus,  one 
Dante,  one  Shakespeare,  one  French  Dictionary, 
for  the  four.  Then  this  room  made  a  pleasant 
place  of  reunion  among  the  families,  without 
mutual  invitation,  and  without  the  feeling  that  you 
might  be  boring  the  others.  Indeed,  I  spent  the 
evening  there, — as  will  appear,  if  this  narrative 
ever  comes  down  to  the  evening. 

In  the  afternoon  I  had  a  long  walk  with  Father 
Thomas  in  his  parish.  We  went  first  to  one  of  the 
four  cathedrals,  where  he  had  the  three  o'clock 
service.  The  congregation  was  from  all  parts  of 
the  town  and  neighborhood,  —  many  people  at 
tending  there,  he  said,  who  never  went  to  any 
of  the  parish  churches.  The  different  clergymen 
take  these  services  in  order.  I  should  think  there 
were  four  or  five  thousand  persons  here.  The  ser 
vice  lasted  an  hour,  and  he  then  took  me  from 
place  to  place  with  him,  showing  me,  as  he  said, 
how  people  lived.  And  so  I  have  had,  in  very 
short  time,  insight  into  a  wider  range  of  homes 
than  I  have  ever  had  in  Europe.  Everywhere 
comfort,  and  the  most  curious  illustrations  of  what 
comfort  is. 

Their  system  seems  to  give  more  definiteness  to 
the  work  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  churches  than 


8o  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

ours  does.  Thus  Father  Thomas  preaches  regu 
larly  in  the  church  I  was  in  this  morning  (TT}<?  ZCOTJS 
al&vfov  is  its  name,  —  the  Church  of  Life  Eternal). 
There  gather  perhaps  a  hundred  families,  from  all 
parts  of  the  city  and  neighborhood.  And  as  I 
understand  it,  his  relations  to  them  are  much  like 
those  of  one  of  our  Congregational  ministers  to  his 
flock,  —  say  Haliburton's  to  his  in  Cairo,  or  mine 
to  my  people  when  I  was  settled  in  Naguadavick. 
But  this  is  rather  a  personal  relation  between  him 
and  these  people,  who  have,  so  to  speak,  gravitated 
toward  him.  He  preaches  there  usually  once 
every  Sunday,  and,  as  I  understand  it,  our  practice 
of  exchanging  pulpits  is  wholly  unknown.  They 
would  be  as  much  surprised,  on  going  into  the 
"  Church  of  Life  Eternal,"  to  find  any  minister  but 
Father  Thomas,  as  they  would  be,  on  going  into 
court  for  the  trial  of  a  case,  to  find  that  the  counsel 
they  had  engaged  had  made  an  "exchange"  with 
some  other  man,  who  had  come  to  plead  in  his 
place.  As  I  have  said,  the  service  here  seems  to 
be  regarded,  at  law  at  least,  as  a  secondary  part  of 
the  matter.  This  Church  of  Life  Eternal  is  re 
garded  as  in  a  thousand  ways  responsible  for  a 
whole  vo/xo?  or  territorial  district,  in  one  corner 
of  which,  indeed,  it  stands.  It  is  exactly  like  the 
theory  of  our  territorial  parish;  but  they  do  not 
use  the  word  "  parish,"  irapoiKia,  or  rather  they  use 
it  for  a  different  thing.  Everybody  in  the  nomos 
of  "Life  Eternal,"  numbering  say  four  hundred 
families,  is  under  the  oversight,  not  so  much  of 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  8 1 

Father  Thomas,  as  of  all  the  committees,  visitors, 
deacons,  deaconesses,  and  people  with  names  un 
known  to  me,  who  are  the  workers  of  this  church. 
"Under  the  oversight"  means  that  this  church 
would  be  disgraced  if  there  were  a  typhus-fever 
district  in  this  nomos,  or  if  a  family  starved  to 
death  here,  or  if  there  were  a  drunken  row.  It 
would  be  considered  that  the  church  of  the  nomos 
was  not  doing  the  thing  for  which  churches  are 
established  here. 

Father  Thomas  reminded  me  that,  in  the  news 
paper  reports  of  criminal  trials,  I  always  see,  next 
the  name  of  the  offender,  the  name  of  his  nomos, 
as  "  South  Congregational,"  "  St.  Paul's,"  "  Old 
North,"  "  Disciples',"  —  "  Life  Eternal,"  said  he, 
"  if  we  had  been  so  unlucky.  But  none  of  our 
people  have  been  before  the  court  for  thirty-one 
years.  In  consequence,"  he  said,  "  if  such  a  mis 
fortune  did  happen  to  us,  I  should  not  hear  the 
last  of  it  for  a  month.  Every  man  I  met  in  the 
street  would  stop  me  to  sympathize  with  me ;  and 
I  should  know  that  people  considered  that  we  had 
made  some  bad  mistake  in  our  arrangements,  if  we 
should  have  a  series  of  such  things  happen.  Of 
course,  we  cannot  help  people's  throwing  them 
selves  away.  But  if  it  is  supposed  that,  if  Chris 
tianity  means  anything,  it  means  that  Jesus  Christ 
came  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world;  and  this 
church  is  regarded  as  his  representative,  at  least 
so  far  as  that  vulgar  or  concrete  form  of  sin  goes 
which  men  call  crime." 

6 


82  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

I  take  it  this  arrangement  by  which  a  fixed 
organization  is  responsible  in  every  locality  for  the 
prevention  of  poverty  and  the  prevention  of  crime 
has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  curious  insignifi 
cance  of  their  criminal  business  in  the  courts. 

I  am  terribly  tired,  but  feel  as  if  I  understood 
them  a  little  better  than  I  did  yesterday. 


Monday,  6th.  —  A  busy  day;  but,  warned  by 
yesterday,  I  have  not  fagged  myself  out  as  I  did 
then.  Or,  rather,  I  ought  to  say,  I  have  taken  their 
advice,  instead  of  living  in  my  own  fashion.  I  am 
really  becoming  a  Sybarite  myself,  and  therefore  sit 
down  here  at  9.30  at  night,  not  dead  knocked  up 
by  the  day's  work,  as  a  Yankee  would  be,  and  as  I 
was  yesterday. 

The  programme  was,  breakfast  with  the  boat- 
builder  Pylades  ;  then  to  go  through  the  schools 
with  Kleone,  who  takes  a  good  deal  of  interest  in 
them  ;  to  drive  and  bathe  with  Philip's  people  ;  to 
dine  with  the  Angelides,  —  nice  people  whom  I 
met  at  the  party,  Friday,  —  and  with  them  go  to 
their  theatre,  where  their  daughters  were  to  act. 
All  this  is  over,  and  I  am  here  at  9.30,  as  before 
said. 

They  make  much  account  of  breakfast  parties, 
I  noticed  on  Saturday  that  the  Chief  Justice  said 
he  liked  to  see  people  before  they  had  begun  to 
go  to  sleep,  and  that  most  people  did  begin  to  go 
to  sleep  at  noon.  Here  was,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  a  charming  party,  just  evenly  divided 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  83 

between  men  and  women,  round  a  large,  circular 
table,  in  a  beautiful  room  opening  on  a  veranda. 
The  table  blazed  with  flowers,  and  even  with  early 
fruit  from  the  forcing-houses.  I  took  out  Kleone, 
but  the  talk  was  general. 

I  asked  Philip  how  long  his  brother  would 
remain  in  the  office  of  Proxenus.  Philip  turned  a 
little  sharply  on  me,  and  asked  if  I  had  any  com 
plaints  to  make.  I  soothed  him  by  explaining 
that  all  that  I  asked  about  was  the  term  of  office 
in  their  system,  and  he  apologized. 

"  He  will  be  in  as  long  as  he  chooses,  probably. 
In  theory  he  remains  in  until  a  majority  of  the 
voters,  which  is  to  say  the  adult  men  and  women, 
join  in  a  petition  for  his  removal.  Then  he  will  be 
removed  at  once.  The  government  will  appoint  a 
temporary  substitute,  and  order  an  election  of  his 
successor." 

"  Do  you  mean  there  is  no  fixed  election-day?  " 

"  None  at  all/'  said  Philip.  "  We  are  always 
voting.  When  I  left  you  yesterday  afternoon  I 
went  in  to  vote  for  an  alderman  of  our  ward,  in 
place  of  a  man  who  has  resigned.  I  wish  I  had 
taken  you  in  with  me,  though  there  was  nothing  to 
see.  Only  three  or  four  great  books,  each  headed 
with  the  name  of  a  candidate.  I  wrote  my  name 
in  Andrew  Second's  book.  He  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
best  man.  The  books  will  be  open  three  months. 
No  one,  of  course,  can  vote  more  than  once, 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  there  will  be  a  count, 
and  a  proclamation  will  be  made.  Then  about 


84  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

removal ;  any  one  who  is  dissatisfied  with  a  public 
officer  puts  his  name  up  at  the  head  of  a  book  in 
the  election  office.  Of  course  there  are  dozens  of 
books  all  the  time.  But  unless  there  is  real  in 
capacity,  nobody  cares.  Sometimes,  when  one 
man  wants  another's  place,  he  gets  up  a  great 
breeze,  the  newspapers  get  hold  of  it,  and  every 
body  is  canvassed  who  can  be  got  to  the  spot. 
But  it  is  very  hard  to  turn  out  a  competent  officer. 
If  in  three  months,  however,  at  all  the  registries,  a 
majority  of  the  voters  express  a  wish  for  a  man's 
removal,  he  has  to  go  out.  Practically,  I  look  in 
once  a  week  at  that  office  to  see  what  is  going  on. 
It  is  something  as  you  vote  at  your  clubs." 

"  Did  you  say  women  as  well  as  men?  "  said  I. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Philip,  "  unless  a  woman  or  a  man 
has  formally  withdrawn  from  the  roll.  You  see, 
the  roll  is  the  list,  not  only  of  voters,  but  of  sol 
diers.  For  a  man  to  withdraw,  is  to  say  he  is  a 
coward  and  dares  not  take  his  chance  in  war. 
Sometimes  a  woman  does  not  like  military  service, 
and  if  she  takes  her  name  off  I  do  not  think  the 
public  feeling  about  it  is  quite  the  same  as  with 
a  man.  She  may  have  things  to  do  at  home." 

"  But  do  you  mean  that  most  of  the  women  serve 
in  the  army?  "  said  I. 

"  Of  course  they  do,"  said  he.  "  They  wanted 
to  vote,  so  we  put  them  on  the  roll.  You  do  not 
see  them  much.  Most  of  the  women's  regiments 
are  heavy  artillery,  in  the  forts,  which  can  be 
worked  just  as  well  by  persons  of  less  as  of  more 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  85 

muscle,  if  you  have  enough  of  them.  Each  regi 
ment  in  our  service  is  on  duty  a  month,  and  in 
reserve  six.  You  know  we  have  no  distant  posts." 

"  We  have  a  great  many  near-sighted  men  in 
America,"  said  I,  "  who  cannot  serve  in  the  army." 

"  We  make  our  near-sighted  men  work  heavy 
guns,  serve  in  light  artillery,  or,  in  very  bad  cases 
we  detail  them  to  the  police  work  of  the  camps," 
said  he.  "  The  deaf  and  dumb  men  we  detail  to 
serve  the  military  telegraphs.  They  keep  secrets 
well.  The  blind  men  serve  in  the  bands.  And 
the  men  without  legs  ride  in  barouches  in  state 
processions.  Everybody  serves  somewhere." 

"  That  is  always  the  reason,"  said  I,  with  a  sigh, 
"  why  everybody  has  so  much  time  in  Sybaris !  " 

Being  so  much  with  Kleone,  — spending,  indeed, 
an  hour  quietly  at  their  house,  after  our  school 
tramp,  and  before  we  went  to  bathe,  —  I  got  a 
chance  to  ask  her  about  household  administration. 
I  did  not  know  whether  things  did  go  as  easily  as 
they  seemed,  or  whether,  as  with  most  households, 
when  strangers  are  visiting  for  a  time,  they  seemed 
to  go  easier  than  they  did.  But  I  think  there  can 
not  be  much  deception  about  it.  Kleone  is  not  in 
the  least  an  actress,  and  she  certainly  wondered 
that  I  thought  there  could  be  so  much  difficulty. 
She  finally  took  me  out  into  her  kitchen,  pantry, 
and  so  on,  and  showed  me  the  whole  machine. 

I  do  not  understand  it  a  great  deal  better  than  I 
did  before.  But  here  are  a  few  central  facts.  First, 
no  washing  of  clothes  is  done  in  any  private 


86  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

house.  For  every  thirty  or  forty  families  there  is 
one  laundry,  —  \ovrpdv,  they  call  it ;  and  the  peo 
ple  there  send  twice  a  week  for  the  soiled  linen, 
and  return  it  clean  at  the  end  of  forty-eight  hours. 
Kleone  said  that  these  establishments  were  so 
small  that  she  knew  all  the  work-people  at  that 
near  hers;  and  if  she  had  any  special  directions  to 
give,  she  ran  in  and  told  what  she  wanted.  Of 
course  they  could  have  all  the  mechanism  they 
wanted,  —  large  mangles,  steam-dryers,  folding 
machines,  and  so  on.  Next,  I  should  think  their 
public  baking  establishments  must  be  better  than 
ours.  Kleone  no  more  thought  of  making  her  own 
bread  than  my  Polly  thinks  of  making  her  own 
candles.  "  I  can  make  it,"  said  she,  with  a  pretty 
air ;  "  but  what 's  the  good  (ro>  /eaXo>),  when  I  know 
they  do  it  as  well  as  I?"  For  other  provant, 
there  is  the  universal  trattoria  system  of  all  Italy, 
carried  on  with  a  neatness  and  care  of  individual 
right,  not  to  say  whim,  which  I  find  everywhere 
here. 

I  took  care  to  ask  specially  about  servants,  and 
the  ease  or  difficulty  of  finding  and  of  training 
them.  Here  Kleone  was  puzzled.  It  was  evident 
she  had  never  thought  of  the  matter  at  all,  any 
more  than  she  had  thought  of  water-supply,  or  of 
who  kept  the  streets  clean.  But  after  a  good  deal 
of  pumping  and  cross-questioning,  I  came  at  some 
notion  of  why  this  was  all  so  easy.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  not  a  very  great  amount  of  what  we 
call  menial  service  to  be  done  in  establishments 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  87 

where  there  are  no  stairs,  no  washing,  no  ironing, 
no  baking,  no  moving,  few  lamps  to  fill,  little  dust 
ing  or  sweeping  (because  all  roads  and  streets  here 
are  watered),  few  errands,  and  little  sickness.  But 
Kleone  did  not  in  the  least  wink  out  of  sight  the 
fact  that  there  was  regular  service  to  be  done,  and 
that  it  did  not  do  itself.  But,  as  she  said,  "  as  no 
girl  goes  to  school  between  fourteen  and  eighteen, 
and  no  boy  or  girl  ever  goes  to  school  more  than 
half  the  time,  —  as  no  girl  under  eighteen  or  boy 
under  twenty-one  is  permitted  to  work  in  the  fac 
tories,  or  indeed  anywhere  unless  at  home,  —  there 
is  an  immense  force  of  young  folks  who  must  be 
doing  something,  and  must  be  trained  to  do  some 
thing.  You  see,"  said  Kleone,  "  no  girl  is  married 
before  she  is  eighteen,  and  perhaps  she  may  not 
be  married  before  she  is  twenty-five.  From  these 
unmarried  women,  who  are  of  age  after  they  are 
eighteen,  we  may  hire  servants.  And  we  may  re 
ceive  into  our  houses  girls  under  that  age,  if  only 
we  exact  no  duties  of  them  but  those  of  home. 
Now,  if  you  will  think,"  said  she,  "  in  any  circle  of 
a  hundred  people,  —  say  in  any  family  of  brothers, 
sisters,  and  cousins,  —  there  are  enough  young 
people  to  do  all  this  work  you  ask  about.  All  we 
have  to  do  is  to  exchange  a  little.  That  pretty 
girl  who  let  you  in  at  the  door  is  a  cousin  of  my 
husband's  who  is  making  a  long  three  months'  visit 
here,  —  glad  to  come,  indeed,  for  it  is  a  little  quiet, 
I  think,  at  Trcezene,  where  her  people  live.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  be  a  notable  housekeeper,  you 


88  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

know;  but  if  I  were,  I  should  have  any  number 
of  girls'  mothers  asking  me  if  I  would  not  have 
them  here  to  stay,  and  they  would  do  most  of  my 
dusting  and  bed-making  for  me.  Elizabeth,  whom 
I  believe  you  have  not  seen,  is  the  only  person  I 
hire,  in  the  house.  She  will  be  married  next  year, 
but  there  are  plenty  more  when  she  goes." 

Speaking  of  Sophia's  letting  me  in  at  the  door, 
there  is  a  pretty  custom  about  door-bells.  To 
save  you  from  fumbling  round  of  a  dark  evening, 
the  bell-pulls  are  made  from  phosphorescent  wood, 
or  some  of  them  of  glass  with  a  glow-worm  on  a 
leaf  inside,  so  that  you  always  see  this  little  knob, 
and  know  where  to  put  your  hand. 

The  plays  were  as  good  and  bright  as  they 
could  be.  The  theatre  is  small,  but  large  enough 
for  ordinary  voices  and  ordinary  eyes.  There  are 
ever  so  many  of  them.  Then  the  actors  and 
actresses  were  these  very  people  whom  I  have 
been  meeting,  or  their  children,  or  their  friends. 
The  Chief  Justice  himself  took  a  little  part  this 
evening,  and  that  pretty  Lydia,  his  daughter,  sang 
magnificently.  She  would  be  a  prima  donna  as- 
soluta  over  at  Naples  yonder.  Father  Thomas's 
daughter  is  a  contralto.  She  does  not  sing  so 
well.  I  do  not  suppose  the  Chief  is  often  on  the 
stage ;  but  he  was  there  to-night,  just  as  he  might 
be  at  a  Christmas  party  in  his  own  house.  He 
said  to  me  as  he  walked  home  with  me :  "  We  are 
not  going  to  let  this  thing  slip  into  the  hands  of  a 
lot  of  irresponsible  people.  As  it  stands,  it  brings 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  89 

the  children  pleasantly  together ;  and  they  always 
have  their  entertainments  where  their  fathers  and 
mothers  do." 

A  funny  thing  happened  as  we  left  the  play.  A 
sudden  April  shower  had  sprung  up,  and  so  we 
found  the  porches  and  passage-ways  lined  with 
close-stacked  umbrellas ;  they  looked  like  mus 
kets  in  an  armory.  Every  gentleman  took  one, 
and  those  of  the  ladies  who  needed.  Angelides 
handed  one  to  me.  It  seems  that  the  city  owns 
and  provides  the  umbrellas.  When  I  came  to  the 
inn,  I  put  mine  in  the  hall,  and  that  was  the  last  I 
shall  see  of  it.  But  I  have  inquired,  and  it  seems 
that,  as  soon  as  the  rain  is  over,  the  agent  for  this 
district  will  come  round  in  a  wagon  and  collect 
them.  If  it  rain  any  day  when  I  am  here,  a  waiter 
from  the  inn  will  run  and  fetch  me  one.  I  shall 
carry  it  till  the  rain  is  over,  and  then  leave  it  any 
where  I  choose.  The  agent  for  that  district  will 
pick  it  up  and  place  it  in  the  umbrella-stand  for 
the  nomos.  In  case  of  a  sudden  shower,  as  this 
to-night,  it  is,  of  course,  their  business  to  supply 
churches  or  theatres. 

I  have  noticed  another  good  thing  about  um 
brellas.  A  man  in  front  of  me  that  day  it  rained 
had  a  letter  to  post  at  a  box  which  was  on  a  street- 
lamp.  If  he  had  had  to  hold  his  umbrella  with 
one  hand,  to  open  the  box  with  another,  and  to 
drop  in  the  letter  with  a  third,  it  would  have  been 
awkward,  for  he  had  but  two  hands.  So  they  had 
made  the  cover  of  the  box  with  a  ring-handle, 


90  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

he  opened  it  with  his  umbrella  hand,  catching  the 
ring  with  the  hook  of  the  umbrella,  and  posted 
his  letter  with  his  other  hand. 


Tuesday,  5th.  —  Fine  again.  I  have  been  with 
the  boys  a  good  deal  to-day.  They  took  me  to 
one  or  two  of  the  gymnasiums,  to  one  of  the  swim 
ming-schools,  to  the  market  for  their  nomos,  and 
afterward  to  an  up-town  market,  to  the  picture- 
gallery,  TrivaKoOrjfcr],  and  museum  of  yet  another 
nomos,  which  they  thought  was  finer  than  theirs, 
and  to  their  own  sculpture-gallery. 

As  we  walked  I  asked  one  of  them  if  I  was  not 
keeping  him  from  school. 

"  No,"  said  he ;   "  this  is  my  off-term." 

"Pray,  what  is  that?" 

"Don't  you  know?  We  only  go  to  school  three 
months  in  winter  and  three  in  summer.  I  thought 
you  did  so  in  America.  I  know  Mr.  Webster  did. 
I  read  it  in  his  Life." 

I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  that  we  knew  now 
how  to  train  more  powerful  men  than  Mr.  Webster, 
but  the  words  stuck  in  my  throat,  and  the  boy 
rattled  on. 

"  The  teachers  have  to  be  there  all  the  time,  ex 
cept  when  they  go  in  retreat.  They  take  turns 
about  retreat.  But  we  are  in  two  choroi;  I  am 
choros-boy  now,  James  is  anti-choros.  Choros 
have  school  in  January,  February,  March,  July, 
August,  September.  Next  year  I  shall  be  anti- 
choros." 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  91 

"  Which  do  you  like  best,  —  off-term  or  school?  " 
said  I. 

"  Oh,  both  is  as  good  as  one.  When  either  be 
gins,  we  like  it.  We  get  rather  sick  of  either  before 
the  three  months  are  over." 

"  What  do  you  do  in  your  off-terms?  "  said  I,— 
"  go  fishing?  " 

"  No,  of  course  not,"  said  he,  "  except  Strep,  and 
Hipp,  and  Chal,  and  those  boys,  because  their 
fathers  are  fishermen.  No,  we  have  to  be  in  our 
fathers'  offices,  we  big  boys ;  the  little  fellows,  they 
let  them  stay  at  home.  If  I  was  here  without  you 
now,  that  truant-officer  we  passed  just  now  would 
have  had  me  at  home  before  this  time.  Well,  you 
see  they  think  we  learn  about  business,  and  I  guess 
we  do.  I  know  I  do,"  said  he,  "  and  sometimes  I 
think  I  should  like  to  be  a  Proxenus  when  I  am 
grown  up,  but  I  do  not  know." 

I  asked  George  about  this,  this  evening.  He 
said  the  boy  was  pretty  nearly  right  about  it. 
They  had  come  round  to  the  determination  that 
the  employment  of  children,  merely  because  their 
wages  were  lower  than  men's,  was  very  dangerous 
economy.  The  chances  were  that  the  children 
were  overworked,  and  that  their  constitution  was 
fatally  impaired.  "We  do  not  want  any  Man 
chester-trained  children  here."  Then  they  had 
found  that  steady  brainwork  on  girls,  at  the  grow 
ing  age,  was  pretty  nearly  slow  murder  in  the  long 
run.  They  did  not  let  girls  go  to  school  with  any 
persistency  after  they  were  twelve  or  fourteen. 


92  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

After  they  were  twenty  they  might  study  what 
they  chose. 

"  But  the  main  difference  between  our  schools 
and  yours,"  said  he,  "  is  that  your  teacher  is  only 
expected  to  hear  the  lesson  recited.  Our  teacher 
is  expected  to  teach  it  also.  You  have  in  America, 
therefore,  sixty  scholars  to  one  teacher.  We  do 
not  pretend  to  have  more  than  twenty  to  one 
teacher.  We  do  this  the  easier  because  we  let  no 
child  go  to  school  more  than  half  the  time ;  nor,  even 
with  the  strongest,  more  than  four  hours  a  day. 

"  Why,'*  said  he,  "  I  was  at  a  college  in  America 
once,  where,  with  splendid  mathematicians,  they  had 
had  but  one  man  teach  any  mathematics  for  thirty 
years.  And  he  was  travelling  in  Europe  when  I 
was  there.  The  others  only  heard  the  recitations 
of  those  who  could  learn  without  being  taught." 

"  I  was  once  there,"  said  I. 

.  .  .  We  bathed  in  the  public  bath  for  this 
nomos,  which  is  not  the  same  as  George's.  The 
boys  took  me  home  with  them  to  dine,  and 
George  came  round  here  this  evening.  We  have 
had  pleasant  talk  with  some  lemon  and  orange 
farmers  from  the  country. 

I  have  not  said  anywhere  that  their  acquajuoli 
are  everywhere  in  the  streets ;  and  a  little  acid  in 
the  water,  with  plenty  of  ice  and  snow,  seems  to 
take  away  the  mania  for  wine  or  liquor,  just  as  it 
does  in  Naples.  The  temperance  of  Naples  is  due, 
not  to  the  sour  wine  people  talk  of,  for  the  labor- 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  93 

ing  men  do  not  drink  that,  but  to  the  attractive 
provision  made  of  other  drinks.  And  it  is  very 
much  so  here.  These  acquajuoli  are  just  like 
those  in  Naples. 

But  here  no  street  cuts  another  at  right  angles. 
There  is  always  a  curve  at  the  corner,  with  a  chord 
of  a  full  hundred  feet.  This  enables  them  to  have 
narrower  streets,  —  no  street  is  more  than  fifty  feet 
between  the  sidewalks,  —  and  it  gives  pretty  stands 
for  the  fruit-sellers  and  lemonade-sellers  at  the 
quadrants.  There  is  iced  water  free  everywhere, 
and  delicious  coffee  almost  free. 

Wednesday,  fyth.  —  As  soon  as  breakfast  was 
over,  I  went  down  to  Pylades,  the  boat-builder.  I 
own  it,  I  am  distressed  to  say  that  he  is  exactly  in 
time,  and  the  boat,  to  all  purposes,  is  repaired. 
She  is  a  much  better  boat  than  she  ever  was 
before.  They  know  no  such  thing  as  a  mechanic 
being  an  hour  late  in  his  performance  of  a  contract. 
"  The  man  does  not  know  his  business  if  he  cannot 
tell  when  he  will  be  done,"  said  Pylades  to  me. 
And  when  I  asked  what  would  have  happened  if 
his  men  had  not  finished  this  job  in  time,  he  shook 
his  head  and  said :  "  dpTrayfios.  I  should  have 
taken  from  a  citizen  what  I  could  not  restore ; 
namely,  the  time  you  had  to  wait  beyond  my 
promise."  I  said  it  was  very  kind  in  him  to  count 
me  as  a  citizen. 

As  to  that,  he  said  fevta,  or  the  duties  of  hospi 
tality  were  even  more  sacred  than  those  of  citizen- 


94  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

ship ;  and  he  quoted  the  Greek  proverb,  which  I 
had  noticed  on  the  city  seal:  Alo-^vvrj  TroXetw? 
TToXiVft)  dpapTia,  —  "  The  shame  of  the  city  is  the 
fault  of  the  citizen." 

I  cannot  see  that  there  is  any  sort  of  excuse  for 
my  loitering  here  longer  than  to-morrow.  The 
paint  will  be  dry  and  the  stores  (what  a  contrast 
to  what  I  sailed  with!)  will  be  on  board  to-night. 
Among  them  all,  I  believe  they  will  sink  her  with 
oranges  and  cigars,  sent  as  personal  presents  to 
me  by  my  friends. 

Andrew  took  me  through  some  of  the  registra 
tion  offices.  They  carry  their  statistics  out  to  a 
charm ;  I  could  not  but  think  how  fascinated  Dr. 
Jarvis  would  be.  But  they  say,  and  truly  enough, 
that  nothing  can  be  well  done  in  administration 
unless  you  know  the  facts.  Take  railroads,  for 
instance ;  if  you  know  exactly  how  many  people 
are  going  to  come  down  town  from  a  particular 
nomos,  you  can  provide  for  them.  But  if  you  do 
not,  they  must  trust  to  chance.  They  know  here, 
and  can  show  you,  how  many  men  they  have  who 
are  twenty-three  years  and  seven  days  old,  or  any 
other  age ;  and  every  night,  of  course,  they  know 
what  is  the  population  of  the  country  in  every 
ward  of  the  whole  government. 

By  appointment,  I  met  the  Chief  Justice  as  he 
adjourned  the  court,  and  we  rode  to  the  Pier  for 
our  last  bath.  Delicious  surf! 

I  asked  him  about  something  which  Kleone  said, 
which  had  surprised  me.  She  said  no  woman  was 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  95 

married  till  she  was  eighteen,  and  that  she  might 
not  be  till  she  was  twenty-five.  I  did  not  like  to 
question  her;  but  he  tells  me  everything,  and  I 
asked  him.  He  went  into  the  whole  history  of 
the  matter  in  his  reply,  and  the  system  is  certainly 
very  curious. 

He  bade  me  remember  the  fundamental  import 
ance,  as  long  ago  as  the  laws  of  Charondas,  of 
marriage  in  the  state.  "  The  unit  with  us,"  he 
said,  "  is  the  '  one  flesh,'  the  married  man  and 
woman.  We  consider  no  unmarried  man  as  more 
than  a  half,  and  so  with  woman."  Then  he  went 
on  to  say  that  they  had  formerly  a  hopeless  im 
broglio  of  suits,  —  breach-of-promise  cases,  divorce 
cases,  cases  of  gossip,  and  so  on,  which  had  resulted 
in  the  present  system  ;  and,  without  quoting  words, 
I  will  try  to  describe  it.  Kleone  was  right.  No 
woman  may  marry  before  she  is  eighteen.  They 
hold  it  as  certain  that,  before  she  is  twenty-five, 
she  will  have  met  her  destiny.  They  say  that,  if 
no  gossip,  or  manoeuvring,  or  misunderstanding 
intervene,  it  is  certain  that  before  she  is  twenty- 
five,  in  a  simple  state  of  society  like  this,  which 
places  no  bar  on  the  free  companionship  of  men 
and  women,  the  husband  appointed  for  her  in 
heaven  will  have  seen  her  and  made  himself 
known  to  her.  They  say  that  there  is  no  unfair 
compulsion  to  his  free-will  if  they  intimate  to  him 
that  he  must  do  this  within  a  certain  time.  If  it 
happen  that  she  do  not  find  this  man  before  that 
age,  she  must  travel  away  from  Sybaris  for  thirty 


96  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

years,  or  until  she  has  married  abroad.  They 
regard  this  as  exile,  which  these  people,  so  used 
to  a  comfortable  life,  consider  the  most  horrible 
of  punishments.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  do  not  won 
der.  Practically,  however,  it  appears  that  the 
punishment  is  never  pronounced.  More  male 
children  are  born  into  the  state  than  female.  This 
alone  indicates  that  the  age  of  marriage  for  men 
must  be  somewhat  higher  than  that  of  women. 
Their  custom  is,  keeping  the  maximum  age  of 
men's  marriage  at  thirty,  for  the  Statistical  Board 
to  issue  every  three  months  a  bulletin,  stating  what 
is  the  minimum  age.  Just  now  it  is  twenty-three 
years,  one  month,  and  eleven  days.  If  a  man  does 
not  choose  to  marry  here  when  he  is  thirty,  he 
spends  thirty  years  in  travel,  looking  for  the  wife 
he  has  not  found  at  home.  But,  as  I  say  of  the 
women,  practically  no  one  goes." 

I  said  that  I  thought  this  was  a  very  stern  statute, 
and  that  it  interfered  completely  with  the  right  of 
the  individual  citizen,  which  they  pretend  was  at 
the  bottom  of  their  system.  The  Chief  Justice 
said,  in  reply,  that  everybody  said  so.  "  L'Estrange 
said  so  to  me  in  England,  and  Kleber  said  so  to 
me  in  Germany,  and  Chenowith  said  so  to  me  in 
America,  and  Juarez  said  so  to  me  in  Bolivia.  But 
the  truth  is,  that  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  before 
a  woman  is  twenty-five,  and  before  a  man  is  thirty, 
each  of  them  has  met  his  destiny  or  hers.  If  the 
two  destinies  do  not  run  into  one,  it  is  because 
some  infernal  gossip,  or  misunderstanding,  or 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  97 

ignorance,  or  other  cause,  —  I  care  not  what,  — 
intervenes.  Now,"  said  he,  "you  know  how 
hard  we  are  on  gossip,  since  Charondas's  time, 
'  No  tale-bearer  shall  live.'  What  is  left  is  to  see 
that  sentiment,  or  modesty,  or  self-denial,  or  the 
other  curse,  as  above,  shall  not  intervene  to  defeat 
the  will  of  Heaven.  For  in  heaven  this  thing  is 
done.  I  can  assure  you,"  said  he,  "  that  this  calm, 
steady  pressure  of  an  expressed  determination  that 
people  shall  carry  out  their  destiny,  saves  myriads 
of  people  from  misunderstanding  and  misery ;  and 
that,  in  practice,  no  individual  right  is  sacrificed. 
I  know  it,"  he  added,  after  a  moment,  "  for  I  am 
the  person  who  must  know  it.  It  is  not  true  that 
all  marriages  are  made  here  by  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
—  as  Dr.  Johnson  proposed.  But  it  is  true  that  I 
send  into  exile  the  people  who  will  not  marry. 
How  many  do  you  think  I  have  exiled,  now,  in 
thirteen  years?  " 

I  guessed,  for  a  guess'  sake,  five  hundred. 

"  Not  one,"  said  the  Chief  Justice.  "  No,  nor 
ever  seemed  to  come  near  it  but  once.  Every 
three  months  there  is  a  special  day  set  apart  when 
the  Statistical  Board  shall  send  me  the  lists.  For 
a  fortnight  before  the  day  there  are  a  great  many 
marriages.  When  the  day  comes,  I  go,  Colonel 
Ingham,  into  an  empty  court-room,  and  sit  there 
for  three  hours.  No  officers  of  court  are  per 
mitted  to  be  present  but  myself.  Once  it  happened 
that  when  I  went  in  I  found  a  fine  young  officer,  a 
man  whom  I  knew  by  sight,  sitting  there  waiting 

7 


98  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

his  sentence.  I  bowed,  but  said  nothing.  I  took 
my  papers,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  come  in 
again  at  eleven.  At  half-past  ten  came  in  a 
woman  whom  I  had  watched  since  she  was  a  child, 
one  of  those  calm,  even-balanced  people,  who  are 
capable  of  blessing  the  world,  but  are  so  unselfish 
that  they  may  be  pushed  one  side  into  washing 
dishes  for  beggars.  She  had  her  veil  down,  but 
walked  to  the  bench,  and  laid  her  card  before  me. 
I  pointed  her  a  seat,  and  went  on  with  my  writing. 
As  the  clock  struck  eleven,  I  asked  her  to  excuse 
me  for  a  moment,  and  I  withdrew.  I  stayed  in 
my  private  room  an  hour.  I  came  back  at  noon, 
—  and  my  lieutenant-colonel  and  my  queenly 
Hebe  were  both  gone.  It  was  the  victory  of  a 
young  love.  He  had  worshipped  her  since  they 
were  at  school  together,  and  she  him.  But  some 
tattling  aunt  —  she  died  just  in  time  to  save  her 
self  from  the  galleys  —  put  in  some  spoke  or 
other,  I  know  not  what,  that  blocked  their  wheels ; 
she  had  calmly  said  '  No  '  to  a  hundred  men,  and 
he  had  passed  like  a  blind,  deaf  man  among  a 
thousand  women.  Both  pf  them  were  ready  to  go 
into  exile,  rather  than  surrender  the  true  loyalty 
of  youth.  But  I  had  the  wit  to  leave  them  to 
each  other.  They  were  married  that  afternoon, 
and  all  is  well !  " 

And  to-morrow  night  I  shall  be  jotting  my 
entries  here  as  the  sea  pitches  me  up  and  down 
in  the  gulf.  When  shall  I  see  all  these  nice  friends 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  99 

again?  I  feel  as  if  I  had  known  them  since  we 
were  born.  I  cannot  yet  analyze  the  charm.  I 
believe  I  do  not  want  to.  They  certainly  do  not 
pretend  to  be  saints.  They  have  rather  the  com 
plete  self-respect  of  people  who  do  not  think  of 
themselves  at  all.  The  state  cares  for  the  citizen, 
and  for  nothing  else.  There  is  no  thought  of  con 
quest  ;  nay,  they  court  separation  from  the  world 
outside.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  citizen  cares 
for  the  state,  —  seems  to  see  that  he  is  lost  if  this 
majestic  administration  is  not  watching  over  him 
and  defending  him.  Because  the  law  guards  their 
individual  rights,  even  their  individual  caprices, 
there  is  certainly  less  tyranny  of  Mrs.  Grundy  and 
of  fashion.  But  yet  I  never  lived  among  people 
who  had  so  little  to  say  about  their  own  success, 
—  about  "  I  said,"  "  I  told  him,"  or  "  my  way,"  or 
"  I  told  my  wife." 

When  I  spoke  to  the  Chief  the  other  day  of 
their  homage  to  individual  right,  he  said  they 
made  the  citizen  strong  because  they  would  make 
the  state  strong,  and  made  the  state  strong  that  it 
might  make  the  citizen  strong.  I  quoted  Fichte : 
"  The  human  race  is  the  individual,  of  which  men 
and  women  are  the  separate  members."  "  Fichte 
got  it  from  Paul,"  said  he.  "  If  you  mean  to  have 
a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body,  you  must  have  a 
sound  little  finger  and  a  clear  eye.  But  you  will 
not  have  a  clear  eye,  or  a  sound  little  finger, 
unless  you  have  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body. 
Colonel  Ingham,  —  Love  is  the  whole  !  " 


i  oo        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

It  has  been  a  pretty  bleak  evening.  I  have 
been  running  round  with  George  to  say  good-bye. 
Kleone  asked  me,  so  prettily,  when  I  would  come 
with  MapidSiov.  It  was  half  a  minute  before  I 
reflected  that  MapidSiov  is  Greek  for  Polly. 

Thiirsday,  3d  Kal.  @apyrj\.  —  At  the  boat  at 
8.30.  The  old  man  was  there  without  the  boys. 
He  said  they  wanted  to  stay  here. 

"  Among  the  devils  ?  "  said  I. 

The  old  man  confessed  that  the  place  for  poor 
men  was  the  best  place  he  ever  saw ;  the  markets 
were  cheap,  the  work  was  light,  the  inns  were 
neat,  the  people  were  civil,  the  music  was  good, 
the  churches  were  free,  and  the  priests  did  not  lie. 
He  believed  the  reason  that  nobody  ever  came 
back  from  Sybaris  was,  that  nobody  wanted  to. 

The  Proxenus  nodded,  well  pleased. 

"  So  Battista  and  his  brother  would  like  to  stay 
a  few  months ;  and  he  found  he  might  bring  Cat- 
erina  too,  when  my  Excellency  had  returned  from 
Gallipoli ;  or  did  my  Excellency  think  that,  when 
Garibaldi  had  driven  out  the  Bourbons,  all  the 
world  would  be  like  Sybaris?" 

My  Excellency  hoped  so,  but  did  not  dare 
promise. 

"  You  see  now,"  said  George,  "  why  you  hear 
so  little  of  Sybaris.  Enough  people  come  to  us. 
But  you  are  the  only  man  I  ever  saw  leave  Sybaris 
who  did  not  mean  to  return." 


My  Visit  to  Sybaris  i  o  i 

"  And  I,"  said  I,  —  "  do  you  think  I  am  never 
coming  here  again?" 

"  You  found  it  a  hard  harbor  to  make,"  said  the 
Proxenus.  "  We  have  published  no  sailing  direc 
tions  since  Saint  Paul  touched  here,  and  those 
which  he  wrote  —  he  sent  them  to  the  Corinthians 
yonder  —  neither  they  nor  any  one  else  have 
seemed  to  understand." 

4<  Good-bye." 

"  God  bless  you !  Good-bye."  And  I  sailed 
for  Gallipoli. 

Wind  N.  N.  W.  strong.  I  have  been  pretty 
blue  all  day.  And  the  old  man  is  too.  It  is  just 
7.30  P.  M.  The  lights  of  the  Castle  of  Otranto  are 
in  sight,  and  I  shall  turn  in.  Xat/oe. 


HOW    THEY   LIVED    AT    NAGUADAVICK 

FROM   REV.   FREDERIC  INGHAM'S   PAPERS 


NAGUADAVICK  was  in  itself,  of  nature,  like 
any  other  town,  only  a  good  deal  worse.  I 
mean  that  the  lake  took  up  all  one  side  of  it,  so 
nobody  could  live  there.  Then  on  the  river  front 
nobody  would  live  if  he  could.  Out  on  the  roads 
to  Assabet  and  Plimquoddy  you  could  get  no 
water  that  anybody  would  drink.  So  it  happened 
that  in  the  town  proper  everybody  had  to  live  on 
the  north  side.  This  made  land  there  dear,  and 
would  have  made  rents  very  high  if  we  had  not 
found  out  a  much  better  way  to  live,  —  of  which 
I  am  now  going  to  give  you  the  history. 

"In  balloons?" 

Not  a  bit  of  it.  There  is  no  word  of  nonsense 
in  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you.  It  is  only  a  thing 
perfectly  practicable  in  every  spirited  American 
town  which  needs  it,  and  the  only  wonder  is  that 
it  was  not  done  in  every  such  town  long  ago.  It 
has  been  tried  for,  everywhere,  in  a  fashion,  and  it 
only  needs  brains,  and  enterprise,  and  faith  in  men, 
to  carry  it  out  everywhere  with  success. 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      103 

It  all  began  at  a  meeting  of  their  Union. 
"Trade's  Union?"  Not  exactly.  In  a  Trade's 
Union  only  one  trade  meets.  This  was  a  meeting 
of  all  sorts  of  people,  with  trades  and  without,  with 
money  and  without,  some  with  one  idea  and 
some  with  seven,  —  a  union  which  they  used  to 
have  in  a  decent  sort  of  club-house  they  had. 
Men  and  women  could  go,  and  did.  You  played 
checkers,  or  euchre,  or  billiards,  —  or  you  went  up 
stairs  and  danced,  —  or  you  read  in  the  reading- 
room,  or  you  talked  in  the  drawing-room.  And  in 
the  committee-room  there  was  almost  every  even 
ing  what  they  called  a  Section,  where  something 
or  other  was  up,  —  maybe  a  tableau,  maybe  a 
debating-club,  maybe  a  paper  on  the  legs  of  cock 
chafers.  They  called  it  all  the  "  Union  for  Chris 
tian  Work."  Well,  one  night  in  the  committee- 
room  they  had  had  rather  a  dreary  pow-wow  about 
the  future  of  Naguadavick.  Pretty  much  all  of 
them  agreed  Naguadavick  was  going  to  the  dogs. 
They  could  not  raise  pine-apples,  and  it  was  evi 
dently  unhealthy  for  cats.  All  the  merchants 
went  to  Boston  for  their  spring  and  fall  supplies, 
instead  of  buying  them  of  each  other.  The 
manufacture  of  horn  gun-flints  had  proved  success 
ful,  but  they  cost  more  when  they  were  made  than 
the  stone  ones ;  and,  worst  of  all,  as  I  have 
remarked,  there  was  no  chance  for  anybody  to  live 
anywhere,  if  the  population  of  the  town  should  en 
large  by  one.  For  every  house  was  occupied,  and 
it  was  known  to  the  presiding  officer  that  at  Mrs. 


104        Sybaris  and  .Other  Homes 

Varnum's  boarding-house  the  mistress  had  that 
day  refused  to  receive  a  family  from  out  of  town 
because  they  had  eleven  children. 

So  it  was  generally  agreed  that  Naguadavick 
was  going  to  the  dogs  as  fast  as  it  could  go.  I 
never  was  in  but  one  thoroughly  prosperous  town 
that  was  not,  if  you  could  trust  the  talking 
kind. 

Meanwhile,  in  fact,  Naguadavick  was  a  driving, 
thriving,  striving,  hiving,  wiving,  and  living  town 
of  23,456  people  by  the  last  United  States  census, 
with  "  probably  at  the  present  time  rising  36,000, 
if  only  the  beggarly  and  miserly  city  council  had 
not  refused  to  take  a  special  count  when  they  levied 
the  tax  last  spring." 

Ogden  went  home  from  that  meeting  red-hot,  he 
was  so  mad.  He  told  his  wife  all  they  had  said, 
and  said  he  could  not  stand  it.  She  said  she 
should  not  think  he  could.  He  said  it  was  all 
nonsense.  She  said  it  certainly  was,  but  she 
wished  he  would  not  swear  so.  He  said  he  would 
not  again,  but  it  was  enough  to  make  the  minister 
swear  and  burn  his  books  too.  She  said  she 
hoped  the  minister  would  not  burn  "  Consuelo " 
till  she  had  a  chance  to  finish  it.  This  made 
Ogden  laugh,  —  it  was  old  Elkanah's  nephew :  did 
you  know  him?  and  they  went  to  bed.  But  Ogden 
was  thoroughly  mad  this  time ;  he  said  he  would 
not  stand  it,  and  he  would  not  have  any  more  such 
talk  at  the  Union.  And  he  did  not.  They  have 
talked  nonsense  there  since.  But  they  never 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      105 

talked  this  same  nonsense.  And  this  was  the 
way  he  managed  it. 

As  soon  as  he  had  read  his  letters  the  next 
morning  at  the  mill,  and  had  just  walked  through 
all  the  rooms  (Ogden  made  whips  for  export,  — 
Boothia  Felix,  —  immense  demand  for  sea-horses), 
he  told  his  boy  he  should  be  out  for  two  hours, 
went  across  to  the  offices  of  the  Great  Eastern 
Railway,  and  charged  right  in  on  Greenleaf.  Cap 
ital  fellow,  Greenleaf,  the  best  man,  I  think,  and  the 
most  spirited  and  most  spiritual,  and  the  most  to  be 
loved,  of  all  men  I  have  ever  known.  Greenleaf 
had  done  his  letters  too,  had  seen  all  his  heads  of 
department,  and  he  put  down  the  "  Advertiser," 
gave  Ogden  two  chairs,  and  put  his  feet  in  one. 

"  Why  did  you  not  stay  in  the  Section  Room, 
last  night?"  said  Ogden. 

"  You  know,"  said  Greenleaf.  "  Why  —  did 
you?" 

"Why,  indeed,"  said  Ogden  again,  "unless  to 
see  how  far  the  infernal  tomfoolery  of  croaking 
may  lead  men.  It  seems  to  be  literally  and  really 
supposed  that  these  people,  who  have  known 
enough  to  dam  this  river,  where  there  is  a  quick 
sand  bottom,  — who  know  enough  to  make  fine 
sewing-thread  in  air  so  dry  that  it  sparkles,  —  who 
know  enough  to  split  a  flint  into  ten  thousand  mil 
lion  billion  flinders  no  bigger  than  the  mustache 
of  a  mosquito,  —  don't  know  how  to  live,  and  will 
go  off  to  Death's  Hollow,  because  the  boarding- 
houses  are  full.  Jove !  Why  don't  they  send  us 


106         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

all  back  to  the  Lincolnshire  Fens  and  to  —  what 
you  call  it  —  old  Brewster's  place,  Ansterfield  — 
Scrooby  —  in  the  edge  of  York,  to-morrow?  Why, 
the  monkeys  know  more,  for  they  know  enough,  if 
they  can't  live  in  one  place,  to  live  in  another !  " 

Thus  far,  remembering  his  wife's  warning,  Ogden 
went  on,  and  sinned  not  with  his  tongue,  nor  weak 
ened  the  force  of  what  he  said,  by  any  profane  ex 
aggeration. 

Greenleaf  laughed,  and  said  he  had  not  heard  so 
much  twaddle  as  he  heard  in  the  five  minutes  he 
was  there,  and  Ogden  was  much  comforted. 

So  soothed,  he  began  again.  "  Now,  Frank,  I 
want  to  stop  all  this.  If  it  goes  on,  it  may  do  seri 
ous  injury.  In  the  first  place,  such  talk  will  ruin 
the  Union.  Who  is  going  there  if  that  whining, 
canting,  drivelling  old  fool  is  going  to  talk  such 
stuff?  What 's  worse  is,  it  will  get  into  the  papers. 
They  would  not  put  it  in  the  '  Spy ; '  but  old  Martin 
at  the  '  Courant'  is  just  ass  enough  to  put  in  some 
thing  about  the  decline  of  our  population,  and  the 
unhealthy  condition  of  the  muskrats  who  live  under 
the  long  dike.  I  had  to  go  round  there  this  morn 
ing  to  stop  him  off  this  time.  Well,  of  course, 
nobody  reads  their  trash ;  but,  after  they  have  put 
it  in  a  few  million  times,  it  gets  copied  somewhere, 
and  it  sticks,  and  then  people  will  really  think  this 
place  has  gone  up,  and  not  an  owl  or  a  jackal  will 
come  here  to  rear  jackets  or  owlets  !  " 

"Who  is  croaking  now?"  said  Greenleaf,  laugh 
ing.  "  You  did  not  come  here  to  say  that." 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      107 

"  No,"  said  Ogden,  standing  up,  "  I  did  not." 
And  he  walked  to  the  large  scale  map  of  the  Great 
Eastern  road.  "  I  came  here  to  show  you  this." 
And  he  pointed  out  a  spot  eleven  miles  from 
Naguadavick,  on  the  line  of  that  road.  "What 
could  you  buy  the  Lemon  property  here  for?  " 

"House  and  land, — there  are  four  hundred 
acres ;  I  suppose  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  would 
be  the  asking  price." 

"Yes,  —  and  out  here, —  the   Gregory  place?" 

Greenleaf  said  that  was  not  worth  so  much. 
There  was  more  land,  but  it  was  poor  land,  and 
the  house  had  been  burned  down.  Ogden  said  he 
did  not  care  how  poor  the  land  was,  and  he  sat 
down  again. 

"  Tell  your  directors  to  buy  those  two  places  to 
morrow.  If  you  have  not  got  any  money,  issue 
some  bonds  and  get  some.  Open  a  new  station 
where  the  Sudbury  road  crosses  yours.  Cut  up 
the  nine  hundred  acres  into  lots  of  a  quarter  acre,  a 
half-acre,  and  an  acre,  say,  in  all,  two  thousand  lots. 
These  lots  will  cost  you  rather  less  than  fifty  dollars 
apiece,  on  the  average.  Fix  the  price  of  each  lot  on 
your  lithograph  plan,  and  never  vary  from  it.  Then 
advertise  that  for  twenty  years  you  will  run  special 
trains  in,  from  your  new  station,  at  6,  6.30,  and  7 
in  the  morning,  and  as  many  more  as  you  choose,  — 
that  you  will  run  them  out  at  6,  6.30,  7,  and  8  in 
the  evening,  and  as  many  more  as  you  choose.  Not 
one  train  shall  stop  on  the  way,  —  and  every  man 
shall  be  in  town  in  twenty-two  minutes  from  the 


io8        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

time  he  started.  Before  you  are  five  years  older, 
if  you  keep  your  promises,  that  station  will  do  a 
business  of  two  thousand  tickets  a  day,  each  way. 
In  ten  years  its  business  will  be  five  thousand 
tickets.  And  your  rascally  railroad  will  be  blest 
of  men  and  angels  as  a  corporation  with  a  soul." 

Greenleaf  laughed,  and  locked  the  door.  Then 
he  opened  a  large  drawer.  "  Look  here,"  said  he. 
"  When  I  left  you,  last  night,  I  came  home  here 
and  drew  out  this  plan,  not  for  the  Lemon  place, 
but  for  the  Chenery  farm,  which  is  better.  We 
may  take  the  Gregory  property  if  we  like.  I  have 
seen  the  chief,  and  he  says,  '  Go  ahead.'  He  says 
he  will  take  it  on  his  own  shoulders, —  that  the 
company  may  not  like  to  carry  it  long  enough. 
He  says  he  shall  lose  nothing  on  the  investment, 
and  that  it  will  bring  up  his  stock.  And  so  it 
will. 

"  We  shall  put  the  lots  at  twice  what  they  cost  us, 
for  there  must  be  a  sure  profit,  and  we  shall  sell  them 
as  the  Illinois  Central  sells  lots,  ten  per  cent  down 
and  ten  per  cent  each  year  for  ten  years,  on  our 
asking  price,  without  other  interest.  The  company 
guarantees,  as  you  say,  fast  trains  for  twenty 
years.  That  will  make  room  for  ten  thousand 
people,  Elk." 

Elkanah  was  very  much  pleased,  and  they  went 
into  the  detail.  His  two  hours  went  by  very  fast, 
and  then  he  went  away.  When  he  had  been  five 
minutes  gone,  Greenleaf  sent  for  him.  "  Ogden," 
said  he,  "  don't  you  think  you  had  better  get  up  a 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      109 

little  earlier  in  the  morning  the  next  time  you 
advise  this  road  ?  "  Ogden  was  good-natured,  and 
stood  the  chaff  like  a  man. 


II 

As  soon  as  Greenleaf  had  bought  the  Chenery 
farm,  and  got  a  bond  for  a  deed  of  the  Gregory 
property,  if  he  wanted  it,  he  published  the  details 
of  his  plan. 

Of  course  all  the  croakers  were  sure  it  would 
fail.  It  had  been  tried  ten  thousand  times,  they 
said,  and  had  failed.  "  Canton,  East  Boston, 
Mount  Bellingham,  Hyde  Park,"  said  the  croakers, 
who  knew  nothing  at  all  about  the  success  or 
failure  of  either  of  these  enterprises,  "  when  did  not 
this  plan  fail?  People  won't  go  where  you  want 
to  send  them." 

"  Tell  me,"  said  Greenleaf,  cheerfully,  —  he  was 
the  only  man  worth  anything  who  never  got  mad 
by  any  accident,  —  and  this,  as  above,  because  he 
was  so  spirited  and  spiritual  at  once,  —  "  tell  me, 
when  this  ship  has  not  sailed,  if  she  was  built 
before  she  was  launched?  I  have  heard  of  old 
Dutchmen,  who  built  the  forecastle  of  a  ship,  and 
launched  it,  and  it  went  to  the  bottom, —  and  of 
cousins  of  theirs  who  built  the  stern  first,  and 
launched  that,  —  and  were  surprised  that  it  did  not 
sail  ten  knots  an  hour.  So,  I  have  heard  of  people 
who  laid  out  cities  on  paper  for  their  own  advan 
tage,  —  and  forgot  the  advantage  of  their  settlers. 


1 1  o        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

And  I  have  heard  of  railroads  who  opened  stations 
where  no  people  lived,  —  and  then  sold  no  tickets. 
I  have  heard  of  new  towns  opened  at  way  stations, 
—  and  people  did  not  choose  to  churn  along  in 
snuffy  old  accommodation  trains.  But  I  have 
never  heard  of  a  place  where  a  man  was  sure  of 
four  fast  trains  every  morning  and  four  more  every 
night,  that  did  not  fill  up  in  no  time." 

Down  at  the  Union,  one  night,  Ogden  got  talk 
ing  about  the  new  place,  and  somebody  told  him 
the  Parisians  would  not  sleep  out  of  Paris.  "  No," 
said  he,  "  nor  will  the  people  of  this  place  sleep 
outside  of  Naguadavick,  if  sleeping  outside  means 
that  they  are  to  have  no  fun  out  there.  If  there 
are  to  be  no  parties,  no  theatre,  no  concert,  no 
Union,  no  chance  to  croak  together,  nobody  is 
going  to  live  there.  That  is  another  reason  why 
you  must  begin  on  a  large  scale.  You  must  have 
people  enough  to  make  it  worth  Greenleaf  s  while 
to  run  four  fast  trains  for  you,  morning  and  even 
ing.  If  you  have  them,  you  will  have  people 
enough  to  persuade  Blitz  to  juggle  for  you,  Mrs. 
Wood  to  sing  to  you,  Wendell  Phillips  and  Henry 
Beecher  to  lecture  for  you,  and  the  French  com 
pany  to  act  for  you.  The  people  who  will  go  to 
this  place  to  live  are  exactly  the  sort  of  people 
who  will  put  all  that  thing  through.  You  will  have 
a  better  public  hall  there  than  we  have  got  here." 
And  so,  indeed,  it  proved. 

I  was  at  that  time  the  minister  of  the  Sande- 
manian  church  at  Naguadavick.  I  believed  in 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      1 1 1 

Greenleaf,  and  indeed  I  rather  believed  in  this 
thing.  So  I  went  round  one  day  and  asked  him  if 
they  did  not  mean  to  reserve  lots  for  churches, 
and  if  they  would  not  let  me  secure  one.  "  Look 
at  the  plan,  Mr.  Ingham,"  said  Greenleaf.  "  You 
will  see  some  red  crosses  there  on  half-acre  lots, 
which  will  be  convenient  for  churches." 

I  looked,  compared,  and  called  his  attention  to 
one  which  seemed  to  me  the  best.  I  said  I  did  not 
know  if  we  could  or  would  do  anything  about  it, 
but  would  they  not  give  us  a  deed  of  that  lot,  on 
condition  we  would  use  it  for  a  house  of  worship. 

'•  We  will  give  you  a  deed,"  said  Greenleaf,  "  on 
exactly  the  same  terms  as  we  would  give  the  gov 
ernment  one  for  a  post-office.  Those  terms  you 
will  find  in  brief  on  the  plan.  That  lot  is  worth 
one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars,  and  for  that  sum 
the  Sandemanian  Consistory  can  have  it.  Look 
here,  Mr.  Ingham,"  said  he,  "  religion,  as  I  under 
stand  it,  is  the  most  essential  reality  in  earth  or  in 
heaven.  The  institutions  of  religion,  then,  as 
churches  or  Sunday-schools,  will  in  no  wise  put 
themselves  on  the  plane  of  inferior  organizations, 
as  if  they  must  beg  for  a  living  or  for  right  to  be. 
They  will  assert  their  right.  We  shall  treat  all 
institutions  of  religion  with  precisely  equal  respect. 
And  I  believe  that  the  Sandemanians  will  find  it 
desirable  to  buy  a  lot  here  now,  while  they  can,  to 
build  by  and  by,  when  they  want  to." 

I  told  him  he  was  quite  right ;  that  the  Sandema 
nian  church,  at  least,  was  in  no  position  to  ask  alms 


T  i  2         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

like  a  beggar.  And  so  the  next  Sunday  morning 
I  spoke  of  the  thing  from  the  pulpit.  I  said  it 
seemed  to  me  we  ought  to  secure  a  lot  there 
before  the  most  available  situations  were  taken 
up  by  others.  I  said  that  any  money  I  found 
in  the  charity  boxes  that  evening  after  the  two 
services  would  be  applied  to  this  purpose.  And, 
as  it  happened,  I  found  one  hundred  and  nineteen 
dollars  and  nineteen  cents  there.  Polly  had  eighty- 
one  cents  lying  by,  which  she  added,  and  we 
bought  the  lot  the  next  morning.  A  very  curious 
thing  followed.  The  "  Spy  "  and  the  "  Courant " 
mentioned  this  fact,  and  before  a  fortnight  was 
over  the  Unitarians,  and  the  Universalists,  and  the 
Methodists,  and  Free  Will  Baptists,  and  Orthodox 
Congregationalists,  and  Baptists,  and  Episcopalians, 
and  even  Roman  Catholics,  had  each  bought  lots. 
"  They  did  not  mean,"  they  said,  "  to  have  those 
proselyting  Sandemanians  stepping  in  before  them." 
So  there  seemed  to  be  no  danger  but  Aboo-Goosh, 
as  they  called  the  new  town,  would  have  enough 
religious  privileges. 

Ill 

Elkanah  Ogden  talked  so  much  about  the 
"  Suburb  of  Ease  "  at  the  Union,  and  in  all  social 
circles,  he  explained  away  so  many  difficulties,  and 
pooh-poohed  down  so  many  objections,  that  he 
came  to  be  considered  as  a  sort  of  godfather  to  the 
plan ;  and  all  sorts  of  people  consulted  him  about 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      1 1  3 

it.  After  the  lithographic  plans  were  printed  by 
the  Great  Eastern,  and  the  demand  for  their  house- 
lots  became  very  spirited,  people  began  to  wake 
up  who  had  been  very  drowsy  before,  or  had  said 
it  was  all  nonsense,  and  that  nothing  could  ever 
come  of  it.  And  all  sorts  of  contrivers  came  to 
Ogden  with  their  plans,  and  bored  him  awfully. 

Among  others  there  came  in  one  day  an  old 
farmer,  whom  Ogden  did  not  know  from  Adam. 
But  he  supposed  he  had  seen  him  before ;  so  he 
said,  "  Good-morning,  Mr.  Jones.  Take  a  chair." 

But  the  old  man  said,  "  My  name  is  not  Jones. 
I  live  next  the  Jones  farm.  My  name  is  Tenny, 
Elbridge  Tenny.  I  live  out  in  Knox." 

Elkanah  apologized. 

Then  the  old  man  said  that  he  had  come  to  talk 
to  him  about  his  place.  It  was  a  beautiful  farm, 
he  said,  sloping  down  each  side  of  the  north  branch 
which  ran  right  through  the  place.  Putting  his 
father's  place  and  his  together,  and  throwing  in  the 
jointure  property,  there  was  nigh  seven  hundred 
acres  in  all.  By  this  time  Ogden  understood  that 
here  was  another  man  who  would  like  to  sell  by 
the  foot  what  had  been  bought  by  the  acre. 

"  You  see,"  said  the  old  man,  "  if  you  want 
horse-cars,  the  grade  is  beautiful  from  each  side 
down  to  the  Great  Northern  Road,  and  the  flat, 
where  the  stream  bends,  is  just  the  place  for  a 
station." 

"  I  dare  say,  Mr.  Jones,"  said  Ogden.  "  I  beg 
your  pardon,  Mr.  Eldridge,  I  dare  say.  But  all 

8 


ii4        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

this  depends  on  what  the  '  Great  Northern '  says. 
I  have  never  found  them  very  bright,  or,  which  is 
much  the  same  thing,  very  humane." 

Mr.  Tenny  said  his  name  was  not  Eldridge,  and 
Ogden  apologized  again.  Tenny  had  not  been  to 
the  Great  Northern  people  ;  he  had  begun  by 
drawing  out  his  plan  for  streets,  which  perhaps 
Ogden  would  like  to  see.  And  then  he  had 
thought  he  would  come  and  consult  Mr.  Ogden 
before  he  went  any  further. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Elkanah,  "  I  am  very  much 
obliged  to  you.  Now  I  tell  you  that  your  farm 
may  be  as  beautiful  as  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  as 
well  laid  out  as  Alexander's  city  in  Egypt,  but 
unless  the  Great  Northern  does  the  right  thing, 
which  is  to  say,  the  handsome  thing,  you  can  do 
nothing  with  the  farm  in  this  way.  More  than 
that,  Mr.  Tenny  [this  time  he  was  quite  correct], 
more  than  that,  they  may  be  as  handsome  as  —  as 
—  the  Chevalier  Crichton,  and  if  you,  up  there, 
are  the  least  bit  short-sighted,  or  try  to  skin  these 
workingmen  whom  you  want  to  plant  there,  the 
whole  thing  fails  again.  As  I  have  said  forty 
times,  the  enterprise  is  one  combined  enterprise, 
which  seeks  everybody's  good.  It  seeks  the  good 
of  the  honest  day-laborer,  who  is  now  paying  a 
dollar  a  week  for  his  tenement  here,  it  seeks  the 
good  of  his  children  not  yet  born,  it  seeks  the 
good  of  the  Great  Northern  Railroad  and  its 
stockholders,  and  it  seeks  your  good.  But  if  any 
one  of  the  parties  undertakes  to  overreach  any  of 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick      1 15 

the  others,  the  whole  thing  fails  and  deserves  to 
fail." 

By  this  time  Ogden  was  unduly  excited,  and  Mr. 
Tenny  was  a  little  alarmed.  But  he  declared  that 
he  felt  all  this  also,  and  only  wanted  to  make  a 
reasonable  profit  in  the  business,  which  he  was 
willing  everybody  else  concerned  should  share. 
Ogden  cooled  down,  and  told  him  that  the  merit 
of  the  enterprise  was  that  it  offered,  not  fabulous 
profit  to  anybody,  but  a  perfectly  steady  and  sure 
remuneration,  —  steady  and  sure,  as  he  proposed 
to  show.  So  they  walked  over  together  to  the 
house  of  the  president  of  the  Great  Northern.  It 
was  afternoon,  and  they  knew  he  would  not  be  at 
the  office.  They  also  knew  that  in  that  establish 
ment  responsibility  was  very  badly  divided,  and 
that  he  would  take  it  very  ill  if  any  such  proposal 
as  this  were  made  to  any  of  his  subordinates  before 
he  had  heard  of  it.  In  fact,  if  he  could  be  per 
suaded,  before  the  week  were  over,  that  he  had 
devised  the  whole  thing,  that  would  be  best  of 
all. 

It  was  very  slow  work,  and,  to  a  person  as  im 
petuous  as  Elkanah,  very  tedious.  But  he  kept 
his  temper  like  a  saint,  knowing  how  much  de 
pended  on  that.  He  let  the  President  ramble  off 
into  endless  histories  of  his  own  former  successes 
in  dealings  with  lumbermen,  with  politicians,  and 
with  owners  of  water-power,  —  in  all  of  which,  he, 
being  the  painter  of  the  picture,  came  off  victori 
ous,  and  these  several  lions  crouched  at  his  feet. 


1 1 6        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

After  many  of  these  rambles  into  the  forests  of 
facts  gilded  by  memory,  he  said,  well  pleased :  — 

"Then  your  object  is  to  persuade  us  to  open  a 
new  station  at  the  Bates  Crossing?  We  might, 
perhaps,  let  the  milk-trains  stop  there,  —  and  the 
Montaigne  special.  How  would  that  answer? 
That  would  give  you  two  trains  in  winter,  and  three 
in  summer  each  way." 

Elbridge  Tenny  looked  round  dubersome  on 
Elkanah  Ogden,  and  this  time  Elkanah  blazed 
away. 

"  It  would  not  answer  at  all,  Mr.  Chauncey.  This 
is  one  of  those  enterprises  where  you  must  do 
everything  or  nothing.  The  railroads  of  this  part 
of  the  country  have  steadily  cut  off  their  best  rev 
enue  —  the  most  reliable  because  not  subject  to 
competition  —  by  that  policy  of  leaving  their  sub 
urb  travel  to  their  accommodation  trains.  Unless 
we  can  have  at  least  three  morning  expresses  and 
three  in  the  evening,  we  can  do  nothing." 

It  was  a  wonder  Mr.  Chauncey  did  not  faint 
away,  or  show  them  the  door  as  madmen.  But 
Ogden  had  expected,  even  had  intended,  this  sur 
prise. 

"  The  people  who  are  to  come  and  go  on  these 
trains,  Mr.  Chauncey,"  said  he,  "  are  not  women 
going  a-shopping,  to  whom  ten  minutes  more  or 
less  is  of  no  account.  They  are  not  even  bank 
clerks,  or  dry-goods  dealers,  to  whom  all  is  gained 
if  they  are  on  the  street  here  at  nine  in  the  morn 
ing.  We  want  to  provide  for  the  day-laborer,  who 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     1 17 

must  get  to  his  work  at  eight  in  the  winter  and  at 
seven  in  the  summer.  We  mean  to  have  him,  and 
his  employer,  as  certain  that  he  will  be  there,  as  if 
he  had  only  to  walk,  in  fifteen  minutes  from  his 
home.  You  cannot  give  him  that  certainty,  if  he 
must  wait  till  your  Montaigne  train  has  made  its 
connections  above,  and  come  down  to  Bates's. 
Besides  this,  we  want  to  promise  him  a  seat  sure, 
—  while  he  goes  and  while  he  comes.  He  must 
not  be  dependent  on  the  chances  of  your  up-travel. 
And  when  he  takes  his  nap,  —  if  he  chooses  to, 
riding  out,  —  he  is  not  to  be  waked  at  six  or  eight 
way  stations.  He  is  to  be  put  through." 

Mr.  Chauncey  smiled,  —  sublime,  amused,  and 
incredulous.  But  the  smile  faded  when  Ogden 
proceeded :  "  These  fast  trains  are  promised  by 
the  Great  Eastern  for  the  next  twenty  years,  to 
people  who  take  lots  at  Aboo  Goosh,  and  that  is 
the  reason  that  they  have  already  sold  seven  hun 
dred  lots.  Offer  nothing  but  way  trains,  stopping 
at  all  your  near  stations,  and  Mr.  Tenny  here  need 
take  no  trouble  about  surveying  his  lands.  He 
will  not  sell  five  acres !  " 

The  President  became  more  thoughtful  at  this. 
"Have  you  thought  what  you  should  offer  us?" 
said  he ;  "  what  bonus  would  be  reasonable  to  in 
duce  us  to  try  the  experiment?  We  might  put 
on  one  express  for  three  months,  and  see  how  it 
would  work." 

"  And  you  would  not  have  passengers  enough  to 
pay  for  your  oil,"  replied  Elkanah.  "No,  Mr. 


i  T  8         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Chauncey,  it  is  a  twenty  years'  business,  or  it  is 
nothing,  that  we  propose  to  you.  There  is  nobody 
now  at  Bates's  but  Mr.  Eldridge  here,  and  he  and 
his  family  will  not  want  many  tickets.  This  busi 
ness  is  to  be  made.  When  it  is  made,  it  is  sure." 

"  And  what  inducement  do  you  suggest?"  said 
the  President  again,  blandly. 

"  Simply  what  I  have  named.  Mr.  Eldridge 
here  will  be  glad  to  sell  you  land  for  your  station, 
at  exactly  the  same  price  that  he  will  sell  me  mine 
for  my  cottage,  or  the  Widow  Conley  for  hers. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  sells  his  two  thousand 
lots,  and  see  his  two  thousand  houses  go  up  in  the 
next  ten  years,  you  can  guess  how  many  tickets 
you  will  sell  daily." 

"  But  they  are  tickets  sold  at  a  reduced  price," 
persisted  Mr.  Chauncey.  "  I  hate  these  excur 
sions!  " 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  Ogden,  "  there  is  no  reason 
why  you  should  put  them  at  a  reduced  price.  Put 
them  at  the  price  that  will  pay  you  best  on  the 
whole.  Only  announce  the  price  before  Mr.  Tenny 
[name  right  this  time]  puts  a  surveyor  on  the  land, 
and  never  change  it  for  twenty  years.  The  system 
is  everything." 

"  Where  is  not  the  system  everything?"  said  the 
President,  pleased  with  himself  for  saying  some 
thing.  And  he  promised  to  think  of  it  carefully, 
for  in  three  hours  he  had  really  got  interested  in 
the  prospects  the  plan  unfolded,  and  his  visitors 
withdrew. 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     1 1 9 

Two  days  after,  Mr.  Chauncey  went  down  to  the 
office  and  had  a  long  talk  with  Plinlimmon,  his 
superintendent,  and  Pariss  his  treasurer.  Plinlim 
mon  was  fretting  to  death,  as  he  heard  from  day  to 
day  about  Aboo  Goosh,  and  thought  what  golden 
chances  the  Great  Northern  was  losing.  But  he 
knew  it  would  be  madness  for  him  to  broach  any 
such  plan.  Imagine  his  relief  when,  after  infinite 
preface  and  explanation,  Mr.  Chauncey  told  him 
how  he  had  been  long  wishing  that  they  might 
build  up  a  local  business  of  their  own,  so  that  they 
should  not  be  so  dependent  on  those  cut-throats  of 
the  Mad  River  line  and  the  Canadian  connection ; 
how  he  had  turned  over  many  plans,  and  finally 
had  concluded  that  if  they  established  a  station 
with  several  fast  trains,  say  at  Bates's  cross-roads, 
they  might  build  up  really  a  large  town  there  ;  how 
he  had  talked  with  that  Mr.  Tenny,  whom  they  had 
to  compromise  with,  about  the  land  at  the  Sias 
cutting,  and  found  him  well  disposed  to  such  an 
undertaking;  and,  in  short,  how  he,  Chauncey,  had 
now  come  down  to  talk  it  over  with  him,  Plinlim 
mon,  and  him,  Pariss,  and  if  he,  Pariss,  and  he, 
Plinlimmon,  saw  no  objections,  which  did  not  occur 
to  him,  Chauncey,  he,  Chauncey,  believed  he 
should  send  Mr.  Stephenson  up  to  make  a  little 
survey,  and  should  bring  it  before  the  Board  the 
next  Monday.  The  two  young  men  were  im 
mensely  interested,  immensely  sympathetic,  asked 
very  intelligent  questions,  proposed  very  modest 
objections,  and  were  then  driven  from  these  objec- 


i  20         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

tions ;  and  by  the  time  Mr.  Chauncey  left  them,  he 
was  satisfied  that  he  had  planned  the  village  of 
Rosedale,  at  least  five  years  ago.  He  had  left  its 
name  to  Mrs.  Chauncey,  and  this  was  her  selec 
tion. 

As  for  our  other  railroad,  —  the  Cattaraugus  and 
Katahdin, — it  never  occurred  to  anybody  to  sug 
gest  anything  to  any  of  their  people;  and  they 
have  never  had  a  fast  special  train  from  that  hour 
to  this,  nor  ever  will.  The  only  thoroughly  origi 
nal  thing  they  ever  did  was  to  pay  in  currency 
in  Naguadavick  the  interest  they  had  promised 
to  pay  in  gold  in  London. 


IV 

It  was  astonishing  to  see  these  two  towns  grow. 
You  see,  it  was  not  the  ordinary  speculation  of  sell 
ing  house-lots  to  other  people,  while  you  do  not 
go  yourself  to  live  there.  But  both  towns  were 
based  on  that  ingenious  Vineland  principle.  It  is 
the  principle  on  which  Uncle  Sam  sells  his  farm- 
lots  at  the  West.  The  price  of  the  lots,  once  es 
tablished,  was  established  forever,  so  far  as  the  first 
holder  went.  Of  course  they  became  more  valu 
able  every  day.  Of  course  every  man  who  bought 
one  whispered  to  his  next  friend  that  there  was  an 
admirable  chance  next  him,  if  he  only  seized  at 
once.  Everybody  tried  to  seize  at  once,  and 
Aboo  Goosh  and  Rosedale  were  soon  alive  with 
the  hum  of  the  hammer  and  the  buzz  of  the  mortis- 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     121 

ing-machine.  By  the  time  we  dedicated  the  San- 
demanian  church  at  Aboo  Goosh,  and  that  was 
really  as  soon  as  we  could  get  up  a  respectable 
church  edifice,  there  were  five  hundred  houses  in 
habited  there.  In  two  years  more  there  were  two 
thousand. 

Anybody  will  understand  how  the  people  with 
comfortable  incomes  lived  there.  That  sort  of 
people  live  outside  the  towns  they  work  in  every 
where.  London,  Boston,  New  York,  all  places  of 
size,  let  the  men  who  receive  salaries,  and  who 
begin  to  work  at  nine  in  the  morning,  live  in  their 
suburbs,  —  and  they  all  know  how  to  provide  for 
that  class  of  people.  The  good  fortune  of  Nagua 
davick  was,  that  in  these  Aboo  Goosh  and  Rosedale 
enterprises  we  provided  for  the  day-laborers  also. 
The  people  who  worked  in  the  mills,  the  mere 
diggers  and  builders,  who  had  to  stand  in  rows  to 
be  hired  on  the  blind  side  of  the  Phenix  Bank, 
opposite  the  Common,  the  women  who  sewed  in 
the  cloak-shops,  —  all  found  it  cheapest  and  best  to 
live  in  the  country,  and  to  do  their  work  in  town. 

I  had  myself  to  leave  Naguadavick  when  these 
towns  had  been  four  years  under  way.  I  left  it  for 
no  fault  on  either  side,  but  in  consequence  of  an 
unfortunate  misunderstanding  and  entente  at  a  pub 
lic  meeting,  called  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  the 
children  to  hold  their  knives  better  at  table.  But  up 
till  that  time  I  was  intimate  in  both  these  new  towns. 
And  I  may  close  this  account  of  them  with  the 
notes  of  my  last  visit  in  Rosedale. 


122         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

I  called  there  on  an  old  parishioner  of  mine, 
named  Mary  Quinn.  She  hailed  originally  from 
Carrick-on-Suir,  but  had  married  Michael  Quinn, 
who  was  from  a  village  just  outside  of  Tipperary, 
some  years  before  I  knew  her.  She  had  six  or 
eight  children  here,  and  two  in  heaven.  I  hunted 
her  up  in  Rosedale,  —  found  her  a  mile  from  the 
station,  on  the  horse-railroad.  They  had  a  regular 
system  of  horse-railroad  tracks  there,  that  virtually 
passed  every  man's  house.  There  was  a  nice 
garden  round  the  house,  of  half  an  acre,  —  no 
fence,  which  seemed  odd ;  but  there  was  hardly  a 
fence  in  Rosedale.  They  had  some  side  hedges, 
but  made  up  for  stronger  fences  by  strict  cattle 
laws.  The  house  itself  was  a  clever  story-and-a- 
half  house,  such  as  costs  in  a  country  town  five 
hundred  dollars.  I  found  this  had  cost  Quinn 
rather  more  than  seven  hundred.  The  lot  had  cost 
him  seventy-five.  He  had  paid  for  that  clear,  with 
money  he  had  in  bank.  He  and  his  wife  had  paid 
a  third  part  of  the  cost  of  the  house,  and  there  was 
a  mortgage  on  it  of  four  hundred  and  sixty  dollars. 
Their  Savings  Bank  there  took  such  mortgages,  if 
they  knew  the  people.  The  truth  was,  that  the 
land  was  worth  now  ten  times  what  the  original 
price  was. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Quinn,"  said  I,  "I  am  glad  to  see 
the  little  girl  so  nicely*" 

The  child,  when  I  saw  her  last,  in  one  of  our 
back  streets,  had  been  white  and  puny,  worrying 
along  with  the  relics  of  scarlet  fever.  She  was 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     123 

now  rugged,  sunburned,  freckled,  and  looked  as  if 
she  would  like  to  eat  a  tenpenny  nail. 

"  Indade  she  is,  your  Riverince,  and  it  is  hard  to 
say  why,  for  the  medicines  are  all  gone,  and  we 
have  not  sent  for  the  new  doctor  since  we  came 
here." 

This  was  a  stroke  of  humor  on  Mrs.  Quinn's  part. 
She  knew  well  enough  that  her  children  were 
growing  up  to  a  constitution  like  her  own  because 
they  were  growing  up  in  the  same  way  as  she  did. 

"But  the  boys,  your  Riverince,  they  are  the 
handsomest  sight,  if  you  could  only  see  them. 
They  're  all  gone  now  for  blackberries,  —  or  for 
I  don't  know  what ;  for,  indeed,  the  fields  here  are  not 
like  what  we  had  at  Carrick-on-Suir,  —  but  they 
are  grown  so  big  and  so  brown  that  you  would  not 
know  them." 

"  And  how  does  there  come  enough  to  eat,  if 
they  are  so  big  and  hungry?" 

"There,  again,"  said  she,  with  the  pride  with 
which  the  hunter  praises  his  hounds,  and  the 
farmer  his  grounds,  and  the  bishop  his  lawn.  She 
flung  open  the  door  of  the  neat  kitchen  we  were 
sitting  in,  and  pointed  to  the  well-hoed  potato- 
patch  behind  the  house,  and  to  the  rows  of  comely 
cabbages  behind  them,  —  as  if  she  had  compassed 
sea  and  land,  lived  at  the  Five  Points  and  in  North 
Street,  and  now  in  Ba«k-street-court-place  in 
Naguadavick,  not  in  vain,  if  she  could  only  have 
her  own  potatoes  at  the  last.  Of  them  she  said 
nothing ;  but,  with  that  speaking  wave  of  the  hand 


1 24        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

which  would  have  become  Rachel  herself:  "And 
the  milk,  your  Riverince,  which  cost  us  ten  cents  a 
quart  in  town,  is  only  six  cents  here.  Half  the 
neighbors  have  cows,  and  it  is  handier  for  them  to 
let  my  boys  milk  for  them,  and  pay  them  in  milk, 
than  to  hire  for  money.  For  they  don't  all  have 
boys  as  fine  as  mine,"  said  Mary,  who  had  her 
weak  points,  like  the  rest  of  us.  "For  butcher's 
meat  we  have  more  than  ever,  and  it  costs  us  less. 
Two  pigs  my  man  brought  up  last  year  on  the 
place  here,  and  though  they  said  the  pork  was  not 
the  fattest,  it  made  a  big  place  in  the  bill  anyway, 
for  the  butcher  allowed  us  all  it  was  worth,  or  he 
said  he  did,  and  surely  that  was  a  good  deal  more 
than  nothing." 

Then  I  cross-questioned  Mary  about  their  social 
life,  tried  to  make  her  own  that  she  felt  the  want 
and  the  excitements  and  amusements  open  to  her 
in  Back-street-court-place ;  but  there  was  no  crav 
ing  for  their  flesh-pots.  Pretty  clearly,  her  "  man  " 
was  more  of  a  man  here,  and  she  was  more  of 
a  woman.  Why?  Why,  because  they  held  Real 
Estate.  Real  very  emphatic,  and  with  a  very  large 
R,  —  and  Estate  with  a  very  large  E.  What  is  it 
Jupiter  ordains?  I  am  writing  at  No.  9,  in  the  3d 
range,  and  must  quote  from  memory :  — 

"  The  day 
That  makes  a  man  a  slave  takes  half  his  life  away." 

Well,  he  might  have  added,  if  it  were  he,  and  I 
believe  it  was  not,  he  might  have  added :  — 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     125 

"  When  he  can 
Say,  *  This  lot  of  land  is  mine,'  he  's  twice  a  man." 

There  is  no  need  to  be  sentimental  about  it, 
but  that  is  the  living  fact.  The  glory  of  New 
England  as  she  was,  was  that  every  man  was  a 
freeholder. 

"  My  man,"  said  Mary,  affecting  not  to  boast,  but 
really  running  over  with  pride,  "  my  man  does  not 
have  much  time  for  the  garden.  He  just  cuts  at 
the  trees  a  little,  and  looks  at  the  boys'  work,  and 
taches  them  a  little  about  the  pig;  but  after  supper 
he  has  to  dress  himself  and  go  to  the  meeting  of 
the  co-operative  store,  where  he  is  manager,  or  he 
sings  in  the  bass  in  the  International  Club,  or  he 
takes  his  turn  on  the  sanitary  committee  of  the 
Union."  Poor  Mike,  too,  then,  he  had  come  to 
enjoy  the  sweets  of  "  eventful  living,"  and  his  wife 
had  come  to  the  pride  of  having  her  husband 
"  sough t-arter,"  second  only  to  the  pride  of  being 
"  sought-arter,"  herself,  in  the  not  forgotten  days 
of  seventeen. 

Boys  and  girls  both  might  now  be  trusted  out 
doors;  and  outdoors  was  a  joy  and  delight  to 
their  mother  as  to  them.  There  was  no  longer 
the  horrid  watch  and  anxiety  there  had  been  in 
the  wynds  and  courts  of  the  city.  Every  summer 
the  large  market  farmers  who  surrounded  them  at 
Rosedale  were  glad  enough  to  hire  the  children  on 
jobs  to  pick  peas  and  beans  and  the  small  fruits ; 
and,  in  fact,  we  got  our  vegetables  the  better  in 
the  city  market,  because  we  had  sent,  not  an  orna- 


1 26         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

mental,  but  a  working  population,  to  our  suburbs. 
It  was  their  gain,  and  it  was  ours  too. 

Mary's  grandest  moment  was  when  she  asked 
me  to  tea.  When  I  got  up  to  go  she  said,  with  a 
reality  far  beyond  any  of  the  tones  of  artificial 
civility,  that  I  must  stay  to  see  the  children  and 
take  a  cup  of  tea.  In  Back-street-court-place  she 
would  have  welcomed  me  had  I  looked  into  the 
crowded  kitchen  parlor  bed-room  at  tea-time,  but 
had  I  come  in  before  tea-time  she  would  no  more 
have  asked  me  to  stay  than  she  would  have  asked 
me  to  hear  her  square  the  hypothenuse.  But  now 
I  should  not  see  the  children,  nor  Mike,  she  said, 
unless  I  stayed  to  tea.  And  she  was  sure  I  should 
be  late  at  home,  which  was  true ;  and  I  was  glad  I 
stayed,  because  I  saw  the  children,  which  was  best 
of  all. 

In  they  came,  clattering  and  explaining,  —  the 
youngest  first,  by  some  miraculous  law,  then  two 
or  three  of  the  biggest,  then  a  miscellaneous  assort 
ment,  wound  up  with  him,  always  the  last,  who  had 
on  this  occasion  got  into  the  brook,  and  brought 
in  his  shoes  in  his  hand.  Clattering  and  enthusi 
astic  were  all  the  party,  each  telling  his  part  of  the 
story  on  a  somewhat  high  key,  and  all  explaining 
about  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  berries, 
which  were  indeed  manifold.  Mary  sympathized, 
applauded,  wondered,  and  quieted,  tried  to  bring 
them  to  consciousness  that  the  old  minister  was 
there,  promised  that  they  should  have  the  black 
berries  for  tea  and  for  breakfast,  bade  Phelim  and 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     i  27 

Owen  go  quick  for  the  milk,  whispered  to  Mary 
Ann  that  she  was  to  run  to  the  baker's  and  buy 
some  tea-cakes,  and  bade  the  others  go  quick  to 
their  rooms  and  wash  themselves  and  brush  their 
hair  that  they  might  be  ready. 

Their  rooms  !  Why  did  not  she  say  their  thrones 
or  their  palaces?  Heavens!  had  not  I  seen  all 
those  children  lying  asleep  together  in  one  room, 
fifteen  feet  by  twelve,  in  which  all  the  cooking  of 
that  family  had  been  done  that  day,  —  all  Mrs. 
Aminidab  Johnson's  family  washing  done,  —  and 
in  which  the  white  muslin  dress  that  Selina  John 
son  wore  to  a  birthday  ball  the  next  night  was 
ironed  while  those  children  slept,  so  that  Phelim 
and  Owen  might  carry  it  home  in  the  morning? 
Such,  dear  reader,  is  the  stowage  in  every  Back- 
street-court-place  within  half  a  mile  of  where  you 
read  these  lines  !  Their  rooms,  indeed  ! 

"  And  come  into  the  sitting-room  yourself,  '  your 
Riverence,' "  continued  Mary.  "  I  would  have 
asked  you  in  before,  but  it  seems  more  sociable 
here,  and  more  like  old  times."  Nor  had  she  rea 
son  to  apologize  for  her  well-blacked  Banner,  her 
neat  kitchen  table,  and  brilliant  tin  ware,  nor  for 
the  pretty  garden  view  before  which  I  had  been 
sitting.  But  I  went  into  the  sitting-room,  knowing 
1  must  be  out  of  the  way  now  while  she  "  got  tea." 

Reader,  I  have  taken  tea  with  that  same  woman's 
sister  Margaret  in  the  cabin  both  were  born  in, 
outside  Carrick-on-Suir.  It  was  a  stone  cabin  with 
a  mud  floor ;  a  partition  of  board  partly  separated 


128        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

us  from  the  pig,  who  had  the  front  of  the  doorway, 
but  who  was  visible  to  the  inquiring  eye.  I  made 
my  call  at  twilight,  and  found  Mary's  nieces  and 
nephews  seated  on  low  blocks,  or  on  their  heels, 
looking  in  the  fire  of  peat.  One  of  them  ran  for 
Margaret,  to  whom  I  had  come  to  bring  a  message 
three  thousand  miles,  from  Mary.  Instantly,  when 
she  appeared,  had  a  troop  of  ravens  been  sent  out 
to  borrow  tea  and  sugar,  that  I  might  feast;  in 
stantly  had  two  oat-cakes  been  set  up  against  the 
stones  on  the  hearth ;  soon  had  the  kettle  boiled 
and  the  tea  been  ready,  and  then  we  had  all  re 
paired  into  Margaret's  bedroom,  —  size,  as  I  live, 
six  feet  by  five,  —  my  Reverence  carrying  with  me 
the  only  chair  in  the  house,  while  John,  the  hus 
band  sat  on  the  bed,  while  the  tea-pot  and  oat-cake 
smoked  at  the  little  table,  and  Margaret,  having  in 
fact  nothing  to  sit  upon,  stood  and  served.  That 
grandeur  of  one  chair,  borrowed  tea,  and  a  barefoot 
life  by  a  peat-fire  was  what  this  Mary  Quinn  was 
born  to.  Yes,  and  for  my  notion,  I  think  it  was 
better  for  her  and  her  brothers  and  sisters  than  the 
tenement  life,  upper  story,  three  flights,  in  Back- 
street-court-place,  where  the  children  feasted  and 
slept  in  the  corners  left  by  Mrs.  Johnson's  and 
Selina's  spotless  drapery.  But  to  be  ushered  out 
by  this  same  Mary,  not  into  the  five-foot-six  bed 
room,  to  feast  from  a  groaning  taper-stand,  but 
into  the  comely  sitting-room, — with  its  six  painted 
chairs,  its  sofa  and  ornamented  centre-table  (shade 
of  Saint  Patrick),  its  portraits  of  Dan  O'Connell, 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     i  29 

Theobald  Mathew,  George  Washington  on  his 
death-bed,  and  framed  testimony  of  membership 
of  the  Siloam  Division ;  to  see  the  cheer  and  joy 
with  which  that  woman  remembered  that  she  was 
not  living  either  in  a  pig-sty  or  in  a  barrack,  and 
the  sweet  saintliness  with  which  she  thanked  God 
that  she  was  not ;  —  to  see  this,  and  to  know  this, 
and  to  remember  this,  was  to  make  Rosedale  glow 
indeed  with  the  true  roseate  hue.  I  should  not 
have  selected  the  pictures,  or  furniture,  but  she 
had.  They  were  her  taste,  if  not  mine,  and  there 
was  the  glory.  "  Excuse  me  for  a  moment,"  said 
the  matron ;  "  Honora  will  be  downstairs  presently," 
and  retired,  intent  on  hospitable  cares.  I  had 
enough  to  think  of  to  make  it  unnecessary  for 
me  to  read  the  last  "  Harper,"  or  Mr.  Hoadley's 
"  Genghis  Khan  and  his  Coadjutors."  I  only  had 
the  "  Harper  "  in  my  hand  that  I  might  not  seem 
neglected  when  my  pretty  little  Honora  came  in. 
And  that  was  really  the  same  child  whom  I  had 
seen  faded  and  dead  in  the  alley-ways  of  the  town ! 
She  remembered  the  things  she  said  then,  and  had 
the  book  Polly  gave  her  then  for  a  Christmas 
present.  The  same  child?  What  one  thing  in 
her  was  the  same?  This  nut-brown  face  against 
that  limy-white  skin,  these  hard  round  arms  against 
those  skinny  fagots  of  muscle  and  tendon,  this 
modest,  simple  look  against  that  eager,  inquiring, 
dissatisfied,  anxious  glare !  And  when  I  talked 
with  her  (the  child  knew  me  as  well  as  she 
knew  her  father), — when  I  talked  with  her,  here 

9 


130         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

were  undertakings,  and  friends,  books,  walks,  col 
lections  of  butterflies,  a  party  to  Mount  Green 
back,  a  picnic  at  Paradise,  —  all  this  against  the 
stupid  town  life  of  such  a  child,  who  has  gone  to 
school  and  come  back  if  she  is  good,  and  gone 
again  and  come  back  again;  but  to  whom  one 
day  has  been  as  another,  because  her  mother  can 
not  trust  her  much  in  the  streets,  and  there  is  for 
her  no  possibility  of  society  in  its  forms  of  simple, 
light-hearted  pleasure !  Dear  reader,  if  you  care 
to  go  into  Back-street-court-place  in  Boston  or  in 
New  York,  you  may  find  as  many  hundred 
Honoras  as  you  choose,  who  never  saw  the  sea  on 
the  beach,  never  picked  shell  from  sand,  never 
planted  seed  in  ground,  never  watched  bird's  nest 
on  tree,  never  crunched  moss  with  foot,  never 
sailed  chip  on  stream,  never  hunted  butterfly  over 
grass,  never  rested  under  shady  tree,  never  waded 
across  mountain-brook,  never  picked  berry  from 
bough,  never  ate  peach  or  pear,  never  rode  on 
horse  or  ass,  never  sat  in  wagon  or  sleigh,  never 
enjoyed  one  of  the  little  pleasures  which  are  as 
the  daily  food  of  your  children,  which  they  think 
of  so  little  that  they  are  begging  you  to-day  for 
something  more,  because  these  are  things  of 
course  to  everybody. 

So,  you  see,  Honora  was  herself  the  heroine  of 
a  romance  to  me.  There  is  the  reason  why  I  read 
so  few  novels,  dear  boy;  it  is  because  I  see  so 
many.  And  here  comes  in  the  great  shy  Frederic, 
—  my  Riverince's  godson,  —  who  has  endued  him- 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     1 3 1 

self  rapidly  in  his  Sunday  jacket  because  of  my 
staying  to  tea,  and  who  is  shy  and  ill  at  ease  both 
because  I  am  there  and  because  he  has  on  the 
jacket.  But  I  administer  a  story  of  the  good 
fortune  of  Dick  McKelvy,  who  has  gone  to  Mexico 
with  the  army,  and  I  show  Fred  a  burning-glass  of 
a  pattern  he  has  never  seen,  and  he  becomes  com 
municative.  Can  it  be  possible !  This  godson, 
who  was  erst  a  little  wild,  you  must  know,  —  who 
really,  if  you  will  not  mention  it,  got  into  the 
lock-up  one  day  because  he  threw  marbles  at  an 
auctioneer,  and,  which  was  ten  thousand  times 
worse,  at  the  common  law,  slapped  the  policeman 
who  tried  to  stop  him,  —  this  godson,  for  whom  I 
then  and  there  had  to  go  bail  that  he  should  keep 
the  peace  of  the  State,  else  he  would  have  been 
sent  to  the  house  of  correction,  —  this  wild  godson 
of  mine  is  the  most  sedate,  if  the  most  enterprising, 
of  human  beings.  He  has  formed  alliance,  offen 
sive  and  defensive,  with  Hod  Bates  (Hod  is  short 
for  Horace).  "You  know  Hod  Bates?"  My 
Reverence  had  not  that  pleasure.  "  Well,  Hod  is 
a  first-rate  fellow,  and  his  father  owns  a  saw-mill 
up  at  Number  Nine  and  two  townships  in  the 
Seventh,  and  Hod  is  going  up  with  the  men  next 
winter  to  take  care  of  one  of  the  camps,  and  he 
has  asked  his  father  to  let  me  go  up  and  take  care 
of  the  other ;  and  if  he  likes  and  I  like,  I  am  to 
have  a  chance  at  the  mill  when  it  begins  running 
in  April,  —  the  fellow  that  is  there  now  is  going  to 
Illinois,"  &c.,  &c.,  &c.  Fred  is  on  a  larger  stage 


132         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

now,  and  the  accumulated  steam  which  erst  fired 
marbles,  as  from  a  Perkins  gun,  on  my  excellent 
friend  Cunningham  with  his  hammer,  is  now  to 
drive  the  mill  which  is  to  cut  the  plank,  which  is 
to  lay  the  floor  of  the  court-house,  in  which  you, 
my  dear  Frisbie,  are  to  lay  down  the  law  which  is 
to  save  from  ruin  these  States  in  all  coming  time ! 
This  is  the  house  that  Fred  built ! 

A  slight  commotion,  and  it  is  announced  that 
Mike's  train  passes  the  window.  Ten  minutes 
more  (for  the  horse-cars  are  not  Metropolitan,  let 
us  be  thankful),  and  Mike's  step  is  heard  at  the 
side  door.  Two  minutes  for  a  second  wash,  for 
brushing  the  hair  even  with  Methodistical  pre 
cision,  and  for  a  Sunday  coat,  and  Mike  emerges 
into  the  sitting-room.  His  ride  out  of  town  has 
been  his  visit  to  his  club-room ;  he  has  picked  up 
all  the  gossip  of  Naguadavick  and  of  Rosedale. 
He  tells  me  more  news  than  I  have  heard  in  a 
week,  and  does  the  honors  with  infinite  volubility. 
Thirty  seconds  more,  and  Mary's  tea-bell  rings. 
That  Mary  Quinn  should  need  a  tea-bell !  that  the 
little  hawks  are  not  sitting  on  their  perches  waiting 
to  descend  on  the  visible  meal !  And  we  go  in 
to  sit,  not  on  the  bed  of  her  bedroom,  but  in  the 
neat  kitchen,  at  her  pretty  table,  where  everything, 
dear  Amphitryon,  is  served  a  great  deal  hotter 
from  the  stove  than  you  will  ever  have  it  in 
your  palace,  for  all  your  patent  contrived  double 
dishes  and  covers,  and  for  all  your  very  noisy 
dumb-waiters. 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     133 

On  that  hospitable  meal  let  the  curtain  fall.  It 
was  the  eaters,  not  the  eaten,  that  had  the  fascina 
tion  for  me.  As  it  happened,  it  was  only  the  day 
before  that  I  had  walked  through  A  Street  in 
South  Boston.  It  was  vacation,  and  the  wretched 
Irish  children  were  sitting  on  their  haunches  as 
Baker  describes  the  Abyssinians,  looking  across  the 
street  at  nothing  with  their  poor  lack-lustre  eyes. 
What  should  they  do?  Mr.  Nash  had  given  them 
baths.  But  they  could  not  swim  all  day !  The 
city  had  given  schools,  but  they  could  not  go  to 
school  all  the  year  !  Poor  wretches,  —  afternoon 
had  come,  and  supper-time  had  not  come,  —  what 
room  was  there  in  those  heated  tenements,  —  what 
play  for  them  outdoors?  And  these  miserable, 
pseudo-Abyssinian  children  were  of  the  same  blood 
as  Phelim  and  Honora  and  Owen.  Nay,  maybe 
they  were  their  cousins.  Maybe ;  and  what  is 
certain,  dear  reader,  is  that  they  were  your 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  were  mine ! 

So  I  drank  Mary's  tea  from  her  wonderful  new 
service  of  "  chaney."  I  ate,  in  the  right  order,  of 
bread,  toast,  gingerbread,  pie,  and  tea-cake;  I 
praised  the  children's  berries  and  had  a  quart  put 
up  for  Polly  and  the  children ;  I  kissed  the  little 
ones  good-bye,  I  shook  hands  with  the  eldest,  cried 
"  All  right !  "  to  Phelim  as  he  stopped  the  horse- 
car,  entered  it,  crossed  to  the  steam  station,  and  in 
thirty-seven  minutes  and  nineteen  seconds,  from 
house  to  house,  I  was  at  home  in  Polly's  arms. 

They  did   not  sell  season  tickets  on  the  Great 


134         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Northern ;  they  sold  package  tickets,  and  for  his 
six  hundred  and  twenty-four  passages  yearly  Mike 
had  to  pay  sixty-two  dollars  and  forty  cents.  His 
interest  money  on  his  house  was  forty-six  dollars 
and  fifty  cents.  These  two  amounts  made  one 
hundred  and  eight  dollars  and  ninety  cents  a  year 
against  the  three  dollars  a  week  which  Mike  used 
to  pay  for  two  nasty  and  deadly  rooms  over  the 
open  drain  in  Back-street-court-place.  He  had, 
thrown  in  beside,  the  steady  improvement  in  his 
property,  his  children's  health,  the  value  of  their 
work,  as  it  appeared  in  the  garden  and  the  results 
of  the  garden,  and,  above  all,  the  feeling  that  no 
man  was  his  master,  that  he  was  independent,  was 
subduing  the  world,  and  in  short  was  one  of  the 
governing  classes.  Mike  was  not  the  only  work 
man  in  Naguadavick  who  saw  the  advantage  of 
that  line  of  life. 

"  This  is  certainly  better,"  I  said  to  myself,  as  I 
rode  into  town,  "  than  having  to  crowd  Mike  and 
Mary  and  their  friends  as  we  did  five  years  ago. 
All  our  ministry  at  large,  and  all  our  home  mis 
sions,  and  all  our  provident  associations,  and  all 
our  relief  organizations,  and  all  our  soup  kitchens, 
were  but  a  poor  apology  for  such  a  success  as  this. 
We  are  getting  back  here  on  the  true  American 
principle,  '  where  every  rood  of  ground  maintains 
its  man,'  woman,  and  child, —  nay,  is  it  not  the 
principle  of  the  prophet :  '  Every  man  shall  sit 
under  his  own  vine  and  fig-tree'?" 

"  We  must  have  land  enough  too,"  I  said.     "  In 


How  They  Lived  at  Naguadavick     135 

a  circle  of  fifteen  miles'  radius  around  Naguada 
vick  there  are  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  acres.  So  many  acre  homesteads,  supposing 
an  acre  were  the  average.  That  gives  homes  for 
two  million  persons,  and  Naguadavick  will  not 
need  two  million  inhabitants,  while  there  are  only 
one  million  people  in  the  whole  State." 

And  so  I  returned  home. 

To  live  thus,  near  Boston,  and  to  let  our  labor 
ing  men  live  thus,  we  need  to  provide  for  the 
laboring  men  as  carefully  as  we  have  already 
provided  for  the  men  who  live  on  salaries.  For 
this,  we  need  express  trains  from  points  so  distant 
that  land  is  yet  cheap.  And  we  need  unswerving 
regularity  in  the  administration  of  these  trains. 
These  requisites  granted,  such  an  arrangement  be 
comes  a  blessing  to  Boston,  to  the  neighborhood, 
to  the  laborer,  and  to  the  railroad  or  common 
carrier,  who  intervenes  among  them  all. 


HOW  THEY  LIVE  IN  VINELAND 

VINELAND  is  a  village  of  about  three  thou 
sand  inhabitants,  closely  surrounded  by 
farms,  where  there  reside  nine  thousand  more, 
thirty-five  miles  from  Philadelphia,  on  the  way  to 
Cape  May.^ 

Eight  years  ago  no  person  lived  in  the  village 
thus  occupied  at  the  present  time  (1869)  and 
hardly  six  families  on  the  lands  now  used  for  farms. 

No  extensive  manufacture  has  called  these  peo 
ple  together.  There  has  been  no  discovery  of 
mines,  mineral  spring,  or  other  marvel.  The  rail 
road  gives  them  no  new  facility,  or  any  which  is 
not  shared  by  a  dozen  other  places.  Nor  is  the 
soil  any  better  than  in  a  hundred  others. 

Vineland  has  become  what  it  is,  a  busy,  thriving 
place  of  twelve  thousand  people,  by  the  steady  de 
velopment  of  two  or  three  simple  principles,  which 
might  be  tried  anywhere,  if  there  were  a  scale 
sufficiently  large  for  the  experiment. 

I  contribute  to  this  book,  therefore,  a  brief  study 
of  these  principles  as  they  have  been  illustrated  by 
the  growth  of  Vineland.  For  I  believe  that  in  the 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      137 

application  of  such  principles  to  the  settlement  of 
small  towns  as  cities  of  refuge  near  our  large  cities 
is  the  salvation  of  our  large  cities  to  be  found.  I 
believe  these  principles  are  of  general  application, 
and  that  the  success  of  Vineland  need  be  by  no 
means  exceptional.  They  are  substantially  the 
same  principles  which,  in  the  sketch  here  at 
tempted  of  the  life  of  the  people  of  Naguadavick, 
are  relied  upon  for  the  success  of  the  colonies 
which  they  established  in  their  railroad  villages. 
As  I  am  well  aware,  however,  that  the  possibility 
of  founding  such  villages  on  these  principles  will 
be  doubted,  I  am  glad  to  sustain  it  by  a  sketch  of 
the  origin  and  success  ^f  Vineland.  I  ask  any 
person  who  is  incredulous  to  go  and  visit  that 
town. 

First,  and  chiefly,  Vineland  relies  —  as  the  im 
agined  towns  of  Rosedale  and  Aboo  Goosh  rely 
—  on  what  I  may  call  the  natural  passion  for 
holding  LAND,  and  the  beneficial  effects  of  FREE 
HOLD  on  the  Freeholder.  We  have  forgotten 
these  effects  in  America,  simply  because  land  was 
to  be  got  for  the  asking  in  our  fathers'  days,  and 
is  to  be  got  for  the  asking  now  in  many  regions. 
Therefore,  in  a  social  condition  formed  by  men 
who  were  almost  all  freeholders,  we  neglect  the 
advantages  of  FREEHOLD  as  we  do  those  of  air, 
water,  light,  and  the  salt  sea.  But,  as  we  pile 
people  together  in  cities,  —  as  we  separate  them 
from  their  mother  earth,  —  as  we  make  them  ten 
ants  of  one  and  another  landlord,  we  do  our  best 


138         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

to  unmake  the  virtues  of  two  centuries'  growth, 
which  sprang  from  the  holding  of  one's  own  home 
in  fee-simple.  The  freeholders  of  New  England, 
in  1775,  were  a  different  race  of  beings  from  the 
privates  in  the  English  regiments  under  the  com 
mand  of  General  Gage  whom  they  met  in  battle. 
The  institutions  which  they  made,  when  they 
established,  in  1780,  the  Constitution  of  Massa 
chusetts, —  and  when  they  established  afterward 
the  other  constitutions  which  on  that  were  pat 
terned,  —  were  all  well  based  on  a  supposed  state 
of  society,  where  almost  every  man  owned  his 
home,  had  a  stake  in  the  country,  as  the  English 
say,  and  had  that  steadfast  desire  to  improve  the 
town  in  which  he  lived,  in  all  of  its  institutions, 
which  to  such  real  estate  belongs.  Real  estate, 
indeed !  It  is  the  only  estate  which  gives  man 
firm  foothold.  It  represents  the  only  wealth  which 
does  not  easily  take  wings  and  fly  away ! 

So  long  as  the  American  systems  are  tested  in 
States  where  most  men  still  have  freehold,  as  in 
the  State  of  Vermont,  for  instance,  they  work  as 
regularly  and  as  precisely  as  they  ever  did.  Let 
me  copy  literally  the  opinion  of  one  whose  opin 
ion  in  such  a  matter  is  worth  much  more  than 
mine.  I  take  it  from  a  note  on  my  table  addressed 
to  me,  which  I  copy  literally,  only  omitting  the 
name  of  the  town  in  Illinois  where  it  is  written. 
It  is  from  a  boy  now  seventeen  years  old,  who  in 
Massachusetts  knew  the  inside  of  at  least  one  jail, 
and  was  always  in  hot  water. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      139 

JULY  27,  1869. 

Mr.  Hale  Dear  Sir  i  Write  these  few  lines  to  let  you 
know  that  i  am  Well  and  hope  you  and  your  family  are 
the  same  i  have  been  west  onwards  two  years  i  have 
been  living  on  a  farm  since  i  came  out  here  i  have 
clothed  myself  and  laid  up  my  money  i  have  been  geting 
$250  a  year  i  have  thought  of  buying  a  farm  and  takeing 
my  mother  out  here  if  i  thought  she  would  come  i  like 
this  state  very  well  the  reason  is  that  a  poor  man  can  get 
a  home  in  a  little  while  if  he  uses  his  means  proper  more 
so  than  in  the  east  i  wich  you  would  give  me  some  infor 
mation  where  my  mother  is  and  tell  her  to  write  to  me  as 
soon  as  possible  as  i  am  anxious  about  her  if  you  think  i 
am  worth  noticeing  i  wich  you  would  write  to  me  as  soon 
as  you  get  this  letter  and  give  me  some  advice  on  this 
matter  and  tell  me  what  you  think  i  had  ought  to  do. 

Now  that  letter  is  a  little  deficient  in  commas, 
but  the  spelling  speaks  sufficiently  well  for  the 
two  or  three  winters'  schools  to  which  this  boy 
was  sent  in  a  mountain  town  in  Massachusetts. 
And  I  would  give  more  for  the  letter  as  an  exposi 
tion  of  the  real  worth  of  Illinois  than  I  would  for 
fifty  "  hifalutin "  articles  in  the  Chicago  or  the 
Springfield  newspapers.  That  Irish  boy  of  seven 
teen  has  found  the  root  of  this  matter.  He  can 
get  a  home  in  Illinois,  though  he  is  poor,  and  he 
can  send  for  the  half-cracked  mother,  who  spent 
the  best  of  her  life,  after  her  husband  deserted 
them  both,  in  taking  care  of  him. 

Land,  —  or  Freehold,  —  in  short,  is  really  a 
prime  necessity.  It  is  necessary  that  almost  every 


140         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

man  should  have  a  fair  chance  at  Land,  —  held  in 
his  own  right,  —  if  you  mean  to  govern  America 
by  its  original  institutions. 

Now,  if  a  man  means  to  be  a  farmer,  there  is  no 
trouble  about  his  getting  this  land.  Between  Lord 
Ashburton's  line  on  the  northeast  and  Cape  Flor 
ida  on  the  south,  and  Nootka  Sound  and  the  rest 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west,  there  is  plenty 
of  land  —  and  the  best  of  land,  if  a  man  wants 
literally  to  subdue  the  earth  —  to  raise  the  food 
from  it  for  his  own  household,  and  to  sell  to  the 
more  civilized  lands  the  surplus  he  has  left.  Ac 
cording  to  the  free-traders  this  is  what  we  all 
ought  to  be  doing.  We  ought  to  stop  this  singing 
of  songs,  wearing  of  clothes,  printing  of  books, 
carving  of  statues,  digging  in  mines,  and  ought 
to  devote  ourselves  to  the  "  providential  duty  "  of 
America  in  raising  breadstuff's  and  cotton  for  the 
rest  of  the  world.  But  even  Adam  Smith  made 
books,  instead  of  working  at  a  loom  in  Glasgow, 
as  by  his  own  theory  he  should  have  done.  And 
the  good  sense  of  the  people  of  America  prefers 
God's  order  to  the  order  of  the  Economists.  It 
prefers  to  develop  each  human  gift,  as  it  appears, 
and  so  to  vary  human  industry  that,  on  our  own 
soil,  there  shall  be  fair  chance  for  each  class  of 
human  power.  If  Jonathan  Edwards  happens  to 
be  born  here,  we  give  him  a  chance  as  a  meta 
physician,  though  by  the  theory  he  should  be  rais 
ing  Indian  corn.  If  Allston  is  born  here,  we  give 
him  a  chance  as  a  painter,  though  he  should  be 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      141 

raising  indigo.  We  once  let  Eli  Whitney  try  his 
hand  as  an  inventor,  though  he  should  have  been 
laying  stone  wall  in  Worcester  County,  by  the 
theory.  By  our  latitude  in  that  one  case  we  created 
the  cotton  crop  of  America.  We  let  Fulton  build 
steamboats,  and  Norris  and  Ross  and  Winans  build 
locomotives,  and  De  Witt  Clinton  build  canals, 
and  Nathan  Hale  build  railroads,  though  by  the 
theory  all  of  them  should  be  hoeing,  or  at  the 
best  grinding.  And  so,  after  two  or  three  cen 
turies  of  varied  industry,  we  have  a  civilization  of 
the  highest  grade,  —  wholly  different  from  the  low 
agricultural  civilization  of  Southern  Russia,  of 
Poland,  and  of  Ireland.  We  have  millions  of 
people  gathering  in  and  near  large  towns  for 
purposes  of  commerce  and  manufacture ;  and 
yet  we  have  and  we  love  institutions  which  are 
based  essentially  on  the  idea  that  the  very  great 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  State  shall  be  free 
holders,  and  shall  be  controlled,  in  their  motives 
and  in  their  action,  by  those  considerations  which 
to  the  possession  of  Land  infallibly  belong. 

Nobody  but  Mrs.  Partington  expects  to  sweep 
back  these  thronging  millions  from  the  towns  to 
the  prairies  by  nice  little  half-column  articles  in 
the  daily  papers,  on  the  joys  of  Agricultural  Life. 
If  the  men  who  write  these  idyls  like  the  prairies, 
why  do  not  they  go  to  them  themselves?  That  is 
the  fierce  question  which  young  men  from  the 
country  and  young  girls  from  the  country  ask, — 
men  and  girls  who  have  forced  their  way  to  the 


142         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

large  towns  and  their  excitements  and  occupations, 
precisely  because  their  own  tastes  or  aptitudes  lay 
in  the  direction  of  commerce  or  of  handiwork  or 
of  fine  art,  and  precisely  because  they  did  not 
choose  to  continue  in  the  duties  which  the  life  of  a 
farmer  compelled.  We  cannot  undo  the  eternal 
laws  of  our  civilization.  We  cannot  keep  our  bread 
and  eat  it  too.  We  cannot  have  large  cities,  with 
the  stimulus  they  give  in  civilization,  and  at  the 
same  time  send  all  our  young  people  to  fence  in 
prairies,  and  raise  breadstuffs.  The  plaintive  ap 
peals  addressed  by  those  who  have  got  their  seats 
for  the  spectacle  to  those  who  are  crowding  on  the 
outside  —  that  they  will  all  be  pleased  to  go  away 
—  are  scarcely  heard.  When  they  are  heard  it  is 
by  those  who  are  quite  incredulous,  though  they  are 
told  that  there  is  not  even  standing  room  within. 

I.  FREEHOLD  is  taken  for  granted  in  the  theory 
of  American  institutions. 

II.  COMPACT  CITIES  are  necessary  for  modern 
civilization. 

How  are  these  two  necessities  to  be  reconciled  ? 

Where  the  cities  are  not  large  the  tendency  and 
habit  of  American  institutions  asserts  itself,  and 
the  workmen  in  the  shops  of  cities  are  at  the  same 
time  freeholders  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
their  work.  In  the  city  of  Worcester,  in  Massa 
chusetts,  there  are  about  thirty-five  thousand  per 
sons  at  the  present  time,  of  whom  I  suppose 
nine  tenths  are  engaged  in  manufacture.  As  in  all 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      143 

manufacturing  towns,  the  proportion  of  persons 
not  living  in  families  is  large.  There  were  in  May, 
1868,  9137  men  over  eighteen  years  of  age.  I  sup 
pose  five  thousand  of  these  may  have  been  heads 
of  families.  To  live  in,  these  families  had  3,849 
houses,  the  average  number  of  inhabitants  to  a 
house  being  as  low  as  eight  and  nine  tenths,  — 
singularly  low  for  a  manufacturing  town.  The 
number  of  resident  persons,  firms,  and  corporations 
which  pay  taxes  on  real  estate  was  as  high  as 
2,924.  It  would  probably  be  safe  to  say  that  in 
that  manufacturing  town  one  half  the  voters  are 
freeholders,  own  their  own  houses  and  reside  in 
them,  having  obtained  freehold  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  their  work.  A  circle  of  four  miles  diam 
eter,  of  which  each  point  would  be  within  two  miles 
of  the  city  hall,  would  give  twenty-four  thousand 
lots  of  a  quarter-acre  each,  allowing  a  quarter  of 
the  space  for  roads  and  parks.  On  the  usual  com 
putation  of  seven  persons  to  a  family,  a  city  whose 
workshops  occupied  a  square  mile  might  give  a 
freehold  of  a  quarter-acre  to  one  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  people,  all  within  a  mile  and  a  half 
of  the  workshop  square  ;  and  yet  no  person  should 
live  in  a  house  with  more  than  seven  inhabitants. 

The  advantage  which  newly  formed  towns  like 
Worcester  have  in  such  regards  is  very  great.  In 
old  towns  like  Boston  it  is  very  difficult  for  the 
laboring  man  to  get  freehold  near  his  work;  he 
becomes  a  tenant,  and  the  tenement-house  system 
comes  in,  with  all  its  disadvantages. 


144        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

But  at  this  point  the  invention  of  railroads  re 
lieves,  or  may  relieve,  the  crowd  upon  the  towns. 

Any  village  within  fifteen  miles  of  a  commercial 
or  manufacturing  town  is  within  half  an  hour  of  it 
by  express  train.  Now  half  an  hour  between  home 
and  work  meets  the  requisition  of  a  laboring  man. 

A  circle  of  fifteen  miles'  radius  includes  rather 

more  than 433-58o  acres 

Give  a  quarter  of  this,  or 108.395     " 

to  roads  and  parks,  and  you  have  left    .    .     325.185  acres 
for  workshops  and  homes. 

Give  eight  thousand  acres  to  shops  and  ware 
houses,  —  that  is,  a  block  three  miles  by  four  miles 
in  the  middle  of  the  circle,  —  and  you  have  left 
three  hundred  and  seventeen  thousand  acres.  This, 
if  you  chose  to  divide  it  so,  would  be  a  freehold 
acre-lot  for  so  many  families;  for  a  population, 
that  is  to  say,  of  two  millions  and  a  quarter,  none 
of  whom  should  live  in  the  "business  part  of  the 
town,"  none  of  them  in  a  house  of  more  than  seven 
inhabitants,  and  each  of  them  with  a  garden  of  an 
acre. 

This  is  the  theoretical  combination  of  the  advan 
tages  of  freehold  and  the  advantages  of  compact 
cities. 

But,  as  every  reader  knows,  the  practice  does 
not  approach  this  theory. 

I.  In  cases  of  seaboard  cities  a  large  deduction 
must  be  made  for  that  part  of  the  circle  which  is 
covered  by  water. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      145 

2.  The  railroad  companies  in  general  are  com 
passing  sea  and  land  to  get  another  barrel  of  flour 
or  another  passenger  from  a  thousand  miles  away, 
unconscious  that  they  can  make  their  richer  mar 
ket   at    their    doors.     One    passenger   from   New 
York  is  shot  into  Boston  with  the  highest  speed 
science  can   give,  for  a  thousand  who  are  left  to 
linger  along  in  the  doldrums  of  local  trains.     But 
the  time  of  the  distant  traveller  is  not  a  whit  more 
important  than  that  of  the  neighbor. 

3.  The  landholder  thinks  his  duty  done  when  he 
cuts  his  land  into  small  lots  and  offers  it  for  sale. 
The  truth  is  that  land  of  itself  is  the  most  worthless 
of  commodities.     To  induce  the  laborer  from  the 
city  to  buy  the  land,  many  intermediate  steps  must 
be  taken.     Of  many  of  these  steps  we   have  val 
uable  suggestion  in  the  experience  of  VlNELAND. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  in  the  neighborhood  of 
all  large  cities  may  be  seen  tracts  with  the  lines  of 
paper  roads  dimly  shadowed  on  them,  with  one  or 
two  cottages  orne"es  tumbling  to  ruin,  which  are 
held  up  as  the  illustrations  of  the  failure  of  efforts 
to  induce  laboring  men  to  live  in  the  country.  In 
truth,  they  are  only  illustrations  of  the  folly  which 
supposes  that,  in  a  country  of  intelligent  men,  any 
man  can  sell  by  the  foot  at  high  prices  what  he 
bought  by  the  acre  at  low,  without  doing  anything 
himself  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  property. 

I.  People  will  not  establish  themselves  in  any 
village  of  small  holdings,  unless  it  is  large  enough, 
or  promises  to  be  large  enough,  to  give  them 


10 


146         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

society,  and,  with  society,  the  amusements,  the  in 
struction,  and  mutual  advantages  of  other  kinds 
which  society  affords.  The  town  must  be  large 
enough  for  two  or  three  churches  at  least,  for  good 
schools,  for  public  entertainments  of  different 
grades,  and  for  the  vivacity  which  belongs  to  city 
life,  or  the  laboring  men  will  stay  in  the  city.  This 
requires  an  enterprise  involving  at  least  one  thou 
sand  families.  Six  hundred  acres  of  land,  at  the 
very  least,  are  needed  to  offer  to  each  settler  the 
attractions  which  are  indispensable.  One  or  two 
thousand  would  be  better. 

In  the  establishment  of  VlNELAND,  Mr.  Landis, 
the  founder,  was  not  looking  to  draw  men  out  from 
cities.  I  suppose  he  would  be  quite  as  willing  that 
men  used  to  city  life  should  not  come.  He  was 
trying  to  build  up  a  community  of  small  farmers. 
But  even  he  saw  the  necessity  of  compact  village 
life.  The  centre  of  Vineland  is  a  village  of  six 
hundred  acres,  crossed  by  eight  streets,  running 
one  way,  and  in  the  middle  of  all,  by  the  broad 
avenue  of  which  the  railroad  is  the  middle ;  and 
across  the  other  way  by  nine  streets,  with  Landis 
Avenue.  The  village  lots  were  originally  fifty  feet 
wide.  Mr.  Landis  gave  land  for  the  erection  of 
churches ;  and,  as  he  could,  encouraged  horticul 
tural,  scientific,  and  other  societies,  which  aimed  at 
entertainment  and  mutual  improvement.  Outside 
of  this  village,  Mr.  Landis  laid  off  farm  lots,  from 
five  to  twenty  acres  and  upwards,  which  now  cover 
a  tract  of  more  than  forty  thousand  acres. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      147 

I  am  confident  that  the  success  of  Vineland  is 
due,  first,  to  the  very  magnitude  of  the  scale  on 
which  it  is  planned.  Most  of  us  would  be  will 
ing  to  live  in  a  community  of  ten  thousand  people. 
But  it  is  only  exceptional  persons  who  really  pre 
fer  the  solitude  of  a  hamlet  of  twenty  or  thirty. 

2.  The  new-fledged  freeholder,  who  has  bought 
himself  a  half-acre  lot  in  some  Mount  Vernon  or 
Mount  Bellingham  speculation  near  a  large  city,  is 
apt  to  find  that  all  the  hardships  of  land-owning 
come  upon  him  long  before  the  advantages  can 
develop.  The  day  of  the  auction  sale  he  was  quite 
a  hero.  He  had  a  free  ticket  to  ride  to  the  spot. 
He  had  champagne,  crackers,  and  cheese  without 
charge.  He  was,  that  day,  the  companion  and 
friend  of  all  the  directors.  The  new  roads  were  in 
perfect  order.  The  trains  came  and  went  exactly 
as  the  exigencies  of  the  sale  required.  But  before 
he  has  owned  his  land  a  month  he  has  learned 
that  the  fence  to  it  will  cost  him  more  than  the 
land  cost  him.  The  road  has  washed  badly  in  a 
shower,  and  he  cannot  find  anybody  whose  busi 
ness  it  is  to  repair  it.  No  grocer  is  yet  established 
in  the  neighborhood.  And  the  railroad  no  longer 
runs  a  train  in  and  out  when  it  is  wanted.  He 
does  not  know  any  of  the  other  new  land-owners. 
He  finds  that  the  directors  of  the  land  company  no 
longer  know  him ;  and  that  they  are  naturally  quite 
indifferent  to  his  difficulties.  The  only  new  ac 
quaintance  he  makes  is  the  tax  collector,  who 
begins  assessing  his  real  estate  at  the  auction 


148         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

price.  And  when  he  talks  with  a  mason  about 
building,  he  is  told  they  must  begin  by  digging  a 
well  on  each  of  these  little  lots,  for  which  he  begins 
to  think  they  have  all  paid  very  high. 

In  Vineland  Mr.  Landis  met  most  of  these  diffi 
culties  in  advance,  by  methods  which,  as  I  believe, 
must  be  imitated  by  any  one  who  wishes  for  suc 
cess.  He  went  and  lived  in  his  own  town,  and 
made  the  establishment  of  the  town  his  business. 
There  was  at  least  somebody  on  hand  who  wanted 
to  have  the  establishment  succeed.  By  a  master 
stroke  of  policy,  fortunately  easily  imitated  under 
the  law  of  Massachusetts,  he  took  away  all  neces 
sity  for  fencing,  by  keeping  all  cattle  closely 
confined.  On  the  other  hand,  he  bound  each 
purchaser  to  make  certain  improvements  within 
twelve  months ;  so  that  there  cannot  be  in  Vine- 
land  many  of  the  odious  empty  corner  lots,  waiting 
to  become  valuable,  which  disgrace  most  new 
towns.  Among  the  improvements  required  of  each 
purchaser  was  the  seeding  with  grass  of  the  sides 
of  the  highway,  the  planting  of  shade-trees  along 
the  streets  and  avenues,  and  a  fixed  line  was  given, 
before  which  the  fronts  of  the  houses  must  not  be 
carried.  By  these  arrangements  alone  many  of 
the  drawbacks  which  sicken  a  new  freeholder  of 
his  bargain  are  effectually  removed. 

If  you  go  to  Vineland,  you  find  near  the  station 
a  decent-looking  hotel,  which,  when  I  saw  it,  made 
no  pretence,  but  seemed  comfortable  enough, — 
which  is,  clearly  enough,  in  the  interest  of  the  pro- 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      149 

prietor.  You  enter  your  name  on  the  book,  and 
before  long  a  man  accosts  you,  who  asks  if  you 
wish  to  see  the  place.  If  you  say  you  do,  he  says 
it  is  his  business  to  show  it  to  you,  and  that  if  you 
like  to  take  his  guidance,  he  will  be  ready  with  a 
carriage  when  you  say,  —  without  charge  to  you. 
Meanwhile  you  can  look  at  the  plans,  where  you 
will  find  the  prices  of  unimproved  property  marked. 
He  will  own  that  he  shall  try  to  make  you  see  the 
place  to  advantage,  that  he  has  a  commission  on 
each  sale  he  makes ;  but  you  are  of  course  at  lib 
erty  to  go  with  or  without  his  guidance.  Probably 
you  take  his  guidance.  He  drives  you  up  and 
down  well-built  avenues  and  roads,  shows  you  vil 
lage  lots,  farm  lots,  the  general  plan  of  the  settle 
ment,  and  answers  your  questions  as  well  as  he 
can. 

You  finally  think  you  should  like  such  or  such 
a  place  which  you  have  seen,  and  say  you  will  go 
home  and  ask  your  wife.  "  As  you  please,"  says 
the  agent,  "  but  if  you  buy  at  first  hand  you  must 
take  your  chances.  If  another  purchaser  appears 
to-morrow,  why,  we  shall  sell  to  him."  If  you 
agree  to  purchase  to-day,  favorable  terms  are  given 
as  to  times  of  payment,  which  extend  over  four 
years;  but  invariably  the  conditions  which  have 
been  alluded  to  are  exacted.  No  person  buys 
unless  he  expects  to  become  himself  a  settler.  It 
is  evident,  from  all  conversation  with  the  people 
of  the  place,  that  they  have  taught  themselves  to 
regard  any  land  speculator  who  comes  between 


150         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

the  original  holder  and  the  inhabitant  of  the  land 
as  an  unendurable  nuisance.  But  they  do  not  re 
gard  Mr.  Landis  so,  I  think.  Their  purchases 
have  made  him  rich,  and  they  know  it.  But  he 
has  identified  himself  with  the  success  of  the  place. 
He  has  kept  up  the  highways  at  his  own  charge. 
The  business  of  the  town  is  raising  fruit.  Mr. 
Landis  appoints  an  agent  who  carries  all  fruit  for 
the  settlers  to  Philadelphia  or  New  York,  sells  it, 
and  remits  the  full  proceeds  to  the  producer,  with 
out  any  charge  on  them.  This  is,  of  course,  in 
theory,  false  political  economy.  But  see  at  how 
low  a  charge  it  encourages  the  beginnings  of  the 
industry  on  which  the  town  is  to  rest.  Under  a 
similar  policy  he  has  borne  the  principal  part  of 
the  expense  of  draining  three  hundred  acres  of 
swamp,  from  which  muck  can  be  drawn  for  manure, 
and  has  given  to  each  settler  the  privilege  of  draw 
ing  for  his  own  use  as  much  as  he  needed.  During 
the  winter  of  1866-67  fifty  thousand  wagon-loads 
of  this  muck  were  removed  thus  by  the  settlers 
from  the  lands  of  the  proprietor  for  manure  for 
their  own  farms  and  gardens.  I  was  told  that  the 
settlers  went  with  confidence  to  Mr.  Landis  as  a 
friend  who  would  pull  industrious  men  out  of  diffi 
culties.  I  see  that  he  is  an  officer  in  almost  every 
one  of  the  innumerable  societies. 

In  the  year  1866  the  Agricultural  Society  paid  an  ag 
gregate  amount  in  premiums  of  two  hundred  and  twelve 
dollars,  while  the  Floral  Society  distributed  in  premiums 
twenty-three  dollars. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      1 5 1 

In  the  same  year  (1866)  Mr.  Landis  distributed  the 
following  list  of  premiums  :  — 

One  hundred  dollars  to  be  divided  in  two  sums,  for  the 
best  essay  upon  the  history  of  the  place ;  to  be  deter 
mined  under  the  supervision  of  the  Historical  Society. 

One  hundred  dollars,  to  be  divided  in  two  sums,  for 
the  best  essay  in  Prose,  and  the  best  in  Poetry. 

One  hundred  dollars  to  the  Agricultural  and  Horticul 
tural  Society,  to  be  distributed  as  premiums  for  the  best 
specimens  in  Produce. 

One  hundred  dollars  to  the  Agricultural  and  Horticul 
tural  Society,  to  be  distributed  as  premiums  for  the  best 
specimen  of  Fruit. 

One  hundred  dollars,  to  be  divided  into  two  prize  gold 
medals  with  proper  inscriptions,  to  the  two  male  and  fe 
male  scholars  who  shall  each  be  pronounced  the  most 
proficient  scholar,  independent  of  any  other  consideration. 

One  hundred  dollars  to  the  two  male  and  female  schol 
ars  over  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  not  over  eighteen 
years  of  age,  who  shall  each  be  pronounced  the  most  pro 
ficient  scholar,  independent  of  any  other  consideration. 

One  hundred  dollars  to  the  Band  of  Music,  for  which 
they  are  to  give  six  public  concerts,  —  three  in  the  open 
air  in  summer,  and  three  in  winter. 

One  hundred  dollars,  in  two  gold  medals,  with  proper 
inscriptions,  to  the  persons  most  graceful  in  and  proficient 
in  gymnastics. 

Fifty  dollars,  in  a  gold  medal,  to  the  lady  who  culti 
vated  the  best  flower-garden  with  her  own  hands. 

In  addition  to  the  premiums  offered  by  the  Agri 
cultural  Society  in  1867,  Mr.  Landis  offered  the 
following :  — 


152         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

Twenty  dollars  and  certificate  for  the  best  acre  of 
broom-corn. 

Twenty  dollars  and  certificate  for  the  best  acre  of  field 
carrots.  i 

Twenty  dollars  and  certificate  for  the  best  acre  of  field 
turnips. 

Twenty  dollars  for  the  best-kept  farm. 

Twenty  dollars  for  the  best-kept  orchard,  not  less  than 
two  acres. 

Fifty  dollars  to  the  lady  who  cultivates  the  best  flower- 
garden  with  her  own  hands. 

One  hundred  dollars,  to  be  divided  between  the  two 
male  and  female  scholars,  not  over  eighteen  years  of  age, 
who  shall  be  pronounced  the  most  proficient  scholars. 

One  hundred  dollars,  to  be  divided  between  the  three 
persons  who  are  the  best  players  on  the  violin,  cornet  or 
bugle,  and  flute ;  to  be  played  at  the  Fair,  and  decided 
by  the  committee. 

Fifty  dollars  to  the  lady  most  proficient  in  gymnastics. 

Fifty  dollars  to  the  gentleman  most  proficient  in  heavy 
gymnastics. 

I  may  say,  in  brief,  as  a  summary  of  this  part  of 
my  observations  on  Vineland,  that  it  is  the  only 
new  place  I  ever  visited  where  I  have  found  the 
greater  part  of  the  women  satisfied.  Pioneer  life 
—  the  establishing  of  new  communities — comes 
very  hard  upon  the  women.  The  men  have  the 
excitement ;  the  women  generally  have  hard  work 
at  home  without  excitement.  The  men  find  their 
society  as  they  do  their  daily  work.  The  women 
generally  are  left  alone  to  theirs.  But  in  Vineland, 
even  when  it  was  but  four  years  old,  I  found  in- 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      153 

tense  activity  everywhere,  and  I  spoke  to  no 
woman  who  was  not  well  satisfied  with  the  social 
experiment  which  was  undertaken  there. 

3.  It  will  not  unfrequently  happen  that  the  pur 
chaser  fails  to  make  the  improvement  to  which  he 
is  pledged,  and  that  the  land  therefore  recurs  to 
Mr.  Landis.  In  this  case,  when  he  offers  the  land 
again  for  sale,  he  changes  the  price  from  what  it 
was,  as  the  circumstances  may  justify.  But  in 
general  the  price  of  unimproved  land  remains  un 
changed,  Mr.  Landis  relying  for  his  profits  on  the 
continual  improvements  of  the  settlement,  which  of 
course  quickens  sales,  as  the  population  enlarges. 
What  reason  he  has  for  such  reliance  may  be 
judged  from  the  following  record  of  progress. 

In  1 86 1  one  shanty  was  built  on  the  new  village 
lot. 

In  1862  twenty-five  houses  were  built,  a  store, 
and  a  schoolhouse. 

In  1863  one  hundred  and  fifteen  houses  were 
built,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  three  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  purchases  of  land  had  been  made. 

At  the  end  of  1864  six  hundred  and  seventy 
farms  had  been  sold;  and  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1865,  nearly  two  thousand  persons  attended  Mr. 
Landis's  annual  reception.  As  a  token  of  regard 
they  presented  to  him  "  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia." 

In  1865  about  two  hundred  buildings  were 
erected,  and  at  the  end  Mr.  Landis  had  sold 
about  fourteen  hundred  properties.  Nearly  one 
thousand  contracts  to  build  were  made  in  this  year. 


154        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

At  the  end  of  1867  nearly  two  thousand  farms 
had  been  sold. 

The  following  table,  recently  published,  shows 
what  various  institutions  had  come  into  being  in 
this  period.  Many  of  these  are  doubtless  larger 
on  paper  than  anywhere  else,  still  they  represent 
something. 

I.   MANUFACTURING  INTERESTS. 

1.  American  Building  Block  Factory. 

2.  Twelve  Stone  Quarries. 

3.  Three  Brick  Yards. 

4.  Six  Steam  Mills,  Planing  Mills,  and  three  Lumber 
Yards. 

5.  Door,  Blind,  and  Sash  Factories. 

6.  Carriage  Factories. 

7.  Saw  and  Plane  Handle  Manufactory. 

8.  Wood-turning  and  Scroll-sawing  Manufactory. 

9.  Shoe  Factory. 

10.  Pottery  and  Stone- Ware  Manufactory. 
u.  Straw-sewing  Business. 

12.  Crates  and  Fruit-Boxes  Business. 

13.  Bookbinding  and  Paper-Box  and  Fancy  Varieties 
Business. 

14.  Clothing  Business. 

15.  Hoop- Skirt  Manufacturing. 

1 6.  Button  Business. 

II.   AGRICULTURAL  AND  KINDRED  SOCIETIES. 

1.  Vineland   Agricultural   and   Horticultural   Associ 
ation. 

2.  Ladies'  Floral  Society. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      155 

[Strawberry  Festivals  and  annual   Fair  and  Exhibition 
under  the  auspices  of  the  above.] 

3.  Pomological  Association. 

4.  Fruit-Growers'  Association. 
4.  Co-operative  Association. 

6.  Landis  Avenue  Improvement  Association. 

7.  East    Vineland     Agricultural     and     Pomological 
Society. 

8.  South  Vineland  Fruit- Growers'  Club. 

9.  Lincoln  Mutual  Benefit  Farmers'  Club. 

10.  North   Vineland    Agricultural    and    Horticultural 
Society. 

11.  Forest  Grove  Agricultural  Society. 

III.   'CHANGE  AND  BUSINESS  FACILITIES. 

1.  Private  Bank. 

2.  Safe  Deposit  Company. 

3.  Mercantile  Association. 

4.  Vineland  Loan  and  Improvement  Association. 

5.  Three  Post- Offices,  one  of  which  does  a  far  larger 
business  than  any  other  in  West  Jersey. 

IV.  TEMPERANCE  AND  PHYSICAL  REFORM. 
f  Intoxicating   Liquors  Voted  out  of  Vineland,  July 
10,  1863. 
§  Township  law  to  that  effect. 

1.  Independent  Order  of  Good  Templars. 

a.  Alpha  Temple. 

b.  Liberty,  Excelsior,  Rising  Sun,  and   Koh-i-noor 

Lodges. 

2.  Health  Association. 

3.  Phil- Athletic  Club. 

4.  Base  Club. 


156         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

V.   EDUCATIONAL  PRIVILEGES. 

1.  Sixteen   District   Schools,  at   convenient  distances 
from  all  parts  of  the  Tract. 

2.  Four  private  Schools. 

3.  Classical  Institute. 

4.  Young  Ladies'  and  Gentlemen's  Academy. 

5.  Methodist  Conference  Seminary,  now  building,  142 
feet  long,  56  feet  wide  at  the  ends,  and  44  feet  in  the 
centre.     Height  from  ground  to  top  of  cornice,  50  feet. 
Lofty  French  roof,  spacious  cupola,   porticoes,  piazzas, 
balconies,   &c.      Style,  —  Large    Italian   (whatever   that 
may  be). 

6.  SOCIETIES  OF  ART  AND  LEARNING. 

a.  Vineland  Historical  and  Antiquarian  Society. 

b.  Pioneers'  Association. 

c.  Literary  Association. 

d.  The  People's  Lyceum. 

e.  Hamilton  Mutual  Benefit  Society. 

f.  Vineland  Library  Association. 

g.  Harmonic  Society,  Glee  Clubs,  and  Cornet  and 

other  bands,  &c. 

h.  Dramatic  Association. 

/.  Social  Science  Association. 

j.  Lectures,  exhibitions,  festivals,  and  other  varied 
intellectual  entertainments,  periodical  and  ex 
traordinary. 


VI.   BENEVOLENT  SOCIETIES,  &c. 

1.  A.  F.  of  A.  M. :  —  Masonic  Hall. 

2.  I.  O.  of  O.  F. 

3.  Philanthropic  Loan  Association. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      157 

VII.   PUBLIC  HALLS,  PARKS,  SQUARES,  &c. 

1.  Plum  Street  Hall. 

2.  Mechanics'  Hall. 

3.  Union  Hall. 

4.  The  Park,  covering  forty-eight  acres. 

5.  Thirteen  Public  Squares. 

6.  Siloam    Cemetery,  covering  fourteen  acres,  beauti 
fully  laid  out. 

7.  Public  Adornments. 


VIII.   RELIGIOUS  SOCIETIES. 

1.  Episcopalian.  —  Trinity  Church  (Gothic),  on  Elmer 
Street. 

2.  Presbyterian. —  Church  (Light  Italian),  on  Landis 
Avenue. 

3.  Methodist.  —  Church   (Romanesque),  on    Landis 
Avenue. 

4.  Baptist.  — Reed's  Hall.     Large  Church  (Byzantine 
Romanesque),  now  being  erected  on  Landis  Avenue. 

5.  Free-Will  Baptists. 

6.  Sabbatarian. 

7.  Baptist  Congregational.  —  Church    (Italesque),  in 
South  Vineland. 

8.  Union.  —  Church  (Italesque),  in  South  Vineland. 

9.  Adventist. 

10.  Unitarian.  — Church  (Plain  Gothic),  on  Sixth  and 
Elmer  streets. 

11.  Friends  of  Progress.  —  Plum  Street  Hall. 

12.  Catholic.  —  Church  soon  to  be  erected. 

13.  Young  People's  Union  Christian  Association. 


158        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

IX.   MISCELLANEOUS. 

1.  Journalistic. 

a.  Two   weekly  newspapers:   "Vineland  Weekly" 

and  "Vineland  Independent." 

b.  One  bi-weekly:  "  Vineland  Democrat." 

c.  Two  monthly  :  "  Vineland  Rural  "  and  "  Farmers' 

Friend." 

2.  Political. 

a.  Union  League. 

b.  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic. 

c.  Two  Campaign  Clubs. 

The  steadiness  of  the  price  of  unimproved  lots 
is  an  inducement  to  every  resident  to  persuade  his 
friends  and  relatives  to  come  and  assist  in  the  enter 
prise.  Almost  all  settlers,  in  this  way,  begin  to 
feel  a  pecuniary  interest  in  the  success  of  the 
whole.  If  a  settler  and  his  wife  are  pleased,  —  if 
they  see  the  rapid  advance  of  the  value  of  land, 
given  by  some  improvement,  —  they  become  them 
selves  the  best  advertising  agents;  they  write  to 
relatives  or  friends  to  show  to  them  the  advantages 
of  an  investment  here,  and  thus  add  to  the  growth 
of  the  establishment.  They  cannot  invest  in  un 
improved  lands  themselves  without  making  the 
required  improvements.  But  they  can  invite  their 
friends  to  come  and  make  them,  and  it  is  evident, 
from  the  rapid  growth  of  the  place,  that  this  is 
what  they  have  done. 

That  Mr.  Landis  is  himself  kindly  regarded  by 
the  people  who  have  come  together  in  the  town 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      159 

which  he  has  founded  seems  evident  from  the 
direction  which  a  thousand  straws  take,  blown  by 
the  wind  of  its  popular  opinion. 

4.  Early  in  the  settlement  of  Vineland  the  people 
of  the  town,  led  undoubtedly  by  Mr.  Landis,  deter 
mined,  with  great  unanimity,  that  they  would  not 
have  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor,  or  what  they 
call  "  saloons,"  and  we  call  "  bar-rooms."  They 
sent  out  of  town  the  first  dealer  who  sold  beer  to 
the  boys  and  wood-choppers,  and  called  a  meeting 
which  passed  resolutions  and  formed  an  organi 
zation  to  prevent  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors. 
This  was  July  10,  1863. 

They  then,  by  a  very  curious  arrangement,  peti 
tioned  the  Legislature  of  New  Jersey  to  pass  a 
special  law  precluding  the  sale  of  any  intoxicating 
liquor,  beer,  or  wine,  within  the  limit  of  Landis 
township.  The  Legislature  did  this  by  a  vote  of 
sixty-three  to  four,  on  the  ground,  probably,  that 
the  people  asked  for  it,  as  the  State  of  New  Jersey 
has  no  such  general  policy.  Each  offence  against 
this  law  is  punishable  by  a  fine  of  fifty  dollars 
or  by  imprisonment  or  both. 

Of  course  this  peculiarity  keeps  from  Vineland 
all  settlers  who  wish  to  have  the  privilege  of  buying 
and  drinking  liquors  in  public.  There  is  no  re 
striction  on  a  man's  buying  liquors  elsewhere  and 
bringing  them  to  his  house  to  use.  But  he  must 
not  sell  them  in  Vineland.  Mr.  Landis,  and  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  there,  are  very  willing 
to  give  up  any  settlers  whom  they  thus  lose. 


160        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

There  is,  indeed,  in  most  new  enterprises  of  land- 
settlement,  no  lack  of  openings  for  them.  The 
result  of  the  policy  is  shown  succinctly  in  the 
following  report  from  the  Town  Constable  and 
Overseer  of  the  Poor,  published  in  the  spring 
of  1869. 

As  Constable  and  Overseer  of  the  Poor  there  are  some 
things  in  my  department  which  show  so  conclusively  the 
favorable  working  of  the  system  upon  which  Vineland  is 
founded,  that  I  will  give  the  information  to  the  public,  so 
that  the  facts  may  be  known  and  the  example  of  this 
system  followed. 

The  two  principles  in  Vineland  which  we  recognize  as 
uppermost  are:  First,  That  land  shall  not  be  sold  to 
speculators ;  second,  By  the  decision  of  the  people  that 
there  shall  be  no  grog-shops,  liquor  saloons,  licensed 
taverns,  or  lager-beer  shops. 

What  is  the  practical  working  of  these  principles  ?  I 
will  state  a  few  facts  which  are  probably  unexampled  in 
the  United  States,  at  least.  Though  we  have  a  popu 
lation  of  ten  thousand  people,  for  the  period  of  six  months 
no  settler  or  citizen  of  Vineland  has  required  relief  at  my 
hands  as  Overseer  of  the  Poor.  Within  seventy  days 
there  has  been  only  one  case,  among  what  we  call  the 
floating  population,  at  the  expense  of  four  dollars. 

During  the  entire  year  there  has  been  only  one  indict 
ment,  and  that  a  trifling  case  of  assault  and  battery  among 
our  colored  population. 

So  few  are  the  fires  in  Vineland  that  we  have  no  need 
of  a  fire  department.  There  has  only  been  one  house 
burnt  down  in  a  year,  and  two  slight  fires,  which  were 
soon  put  out. 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      161 

We  practically  have  no  debt,  and  our  taxes  are  only  one 
per  cent  on  the  valuation. 

The  police  expenses  of  Vineland  amount  to  seventy- 
five  dollars  per  year,  the  sum  paid  to  me,  and  our  poor 
expenses  are  a  mere  trifle. 

I  ascribe  this  remarkable  state  of  things,  so  nearly  ap 
proaching  the  Golden  Age,  to  the  industry  of  our  people 
and  the  absence  of  King  Alcohol. 

Let  me  give  you,  in  contrast  to  this,  the  state  of  things 
in  the  town  from  which  I  came,  in  New  England.  The 
population  of  the  town  was  9,500,  a  little  less  than  Vine- 
land.  It  maintained  forty  liquor-shops.  These  kept 
busy  a  police  judge,  city  marshal,  assistant  marshal,  four 
night  watchmen,  six  policemen.  Fires  were  almost  con 
tinual.  That  small  place  maintained  a  paid  fire  depart 
ment  of  four  companies,  of  forty  men  each,  at  an  expense 
of  three  thousand  dollars  per  annum.  I  belonged  to  this 
department  for  six  years,  and  the  fires  averaged  about  one 
every  two  weeks,  and  mostly  incendiary.  The  support  of 
the  poor  cost  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  per 
annum.  The  debt  of  the  township  was  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  condition  of  things  in  this 
New  England  town  is  as  favorable  in  that  country  as  many 
other  places  where  liquor  is  sold. 

T.  T.  CORTIS, 

Constable  and  Overseer  of  Poor  of  Landis  Township. 

5.  The  aim  of  Mr.  Landis,  from  the  beginning, 
has  been  to  build  up  a  community  of  which  the 
central  business  should  be  small  farming.  He  has 
no  such  aims  as  had  the  founders  of  the  villages 
described  in  this  volume,  who  wished  to  make 
homes  for  the  laborers  of  Naguadavick.  His 

ii 


162         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

advertisements,  his  reports,  and  his  plans  all  refer 
to  the  advantages  of  the  place  for  light  farming, 
or  market  gardening,  or  the  raising  of  fruit.  To 
this  object  he  has  applied  himself,  —  and  in  his 
effort  he  has  succeeded.  Of  course  a  great  many 
people  are  dissatisfied  and  go  away.  In  the  Vine- 
land  papers  are  long  advertisements  of  improved 
property  offered  for  sale.  But  this  will  happen  in 
all  new  places.  The  restless  people  go  to  them ; 
the  restless  people  leave  them.  People  who  suc 
ceed  in  them  leave  them  for  a  larger  field.  People 
who  fail  leave  them  to  try  other  circumstances. 
Indeed,  I  think  I  could  show  that  of  a  given  num 
ber  of  persons  in  a  community,  even  as  settled  as 
is  Boston,  the  chances  are,  taking  the  average  of 
years,  that  one  twelfth  will  have  removed  from 
that  city  before  one  year  is  over.  Vineland  is  no 
Eden  or  Fairyland.  It  requires  work,  perhaps  as 
much  as  any  place  in  the  world.  But  by  a  few 
simple  arrangements  it  is  made  easy  for  people 
with  small  capital  to  establish  themselves  there. 
It  follows  that  large  numbers  do  establish  them 
selves,  and  that,  of  those  numbers,  a  large  pro 
portion  remains.  The  following  letter  from  a 
"  comparative  cripple  "  —  a  carpenter-farmer  — 
will  show  what  has  been  done  in  a  single  instance, 
which  seems  to  be  in  no  way  exceptional. 

VINELAND,  LANDIS  AVENUE, 
near  Main  Road,  May  6,  1868. 

MR.  EDITOR,  —  I  have  thought  that  a  truthful  record 
of  my  farming  and  "  getting  along  "  experience  generally 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      163 

in  Vineland  would  be  of  some  importance,  especially  as 
bearing  on  the  prospects  of  success  which  have  hitherto 
opened,  and  still  continue  open  here,  to  an  industrious 
person  of  small  capital.  To  that  effect  I  hereby  treat 
you  to  the  following  "  fireside  talk,"  which  can  be  any 
day  fully  verified  by  the  closest  investigation. 

I  have  resided  in  Vineland  for  four  years.  I  came 
here  with  my  family,  consisting  of  my  wife,  one  son,  who 
lost  an  arm  at  Gettysburg,  and  two  grown-up  daughters, 
from  Canaan,  Maine.  My  occupation  there  was  the 
manufacturing  of  bedsteads  and  general  teaming,  with 
some  little  farming.  This  brought  me  in,  during  six 
years,  an  average  of  one  hundred  dollars  clear  annually ; 
but  I  must  say  that  my  ambition  was  but  very  poorly 
satisfied  with  such  small  "  pay  "  for  very  heavy  work. 

As  it  happened,  my  daughter  came  across  a  "  Vineland 
Rural."  We  all  perused  it  attentively,  and,  after  careful 
deliberation,  unanimously  decided  that  we  would  give  a 
fair  trial  to  Vineland,  more  on  account  of  our  health  than 
anything  else,  as  we  had  for  some  time  come  to  the  con 
clusion  that  a  milder  latitude  than  that  of  Maine  would 
be  decidedly  beneficial  to  us  all.  And  I  would  here  say 
that  I  was  then  a  comparative  cripple,  and  have  been  for 
a  long  time  constantly  suffering  from  a  most  annoying 
chronic  disease,  which  all  people,  professional  and  other 
wise,  naturally  pronounced  irremediable. 

Well,  I  came  and  saw  Vineland,  travelled  some  over 
the  track,  investigated,  thought,  pondered,  and  finally 
made  up  my  mind  to  settle.  After  paying  my  debts  in 
Maine,  and  moving  my  family  here,  I  found  that  we  had 
left,  in  all,  two  horses  and  one  fifty-dollar  bill.  But  we 
made  up  our  minds  not  to  feel  discouraged,  come  what 
will.  I  went  at  once  to  work  with  my  horses,  stump- 


164        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

pulling,  at  four  dollars  per  day.  After  a  while,  and  by 
pretty  strict  economy,  I  bought  the  machine,  improved  it 
somewhat,  and  pulled  all  the  stumps  put  in  my  way,  "  on 
my  own  hook."  As  we  had  in  the  mean  time  (as  well  as 
for  some  time  after)  no  house  to  go  into,  I  hired  two 
rooms  at  two  dollars  per  week ;  bought  a  small  cook- 
stove  and  a  few  other  necessary  utensils ;  "  kept  house  in 
a  small  way,"  and  got  along  pretty  comfortably,  on  the 
whole.  In  a  short  time,  comparatively,  I  was  enabled  to 
pay  one  fourth  cash  down ;  namely,  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  dollars  for  twenty-five  acres  of  wild  land,  five 
acres  on  Landis  Avenue,  on  which  I  reside,  and  twenty 
on  Chestnut  Avenue.  Then  I  bought  me  another  ma 
chine,  continued  to  stump  for  my  neighbors  and  to  clear 
my  own  land,  bought  another  pair  of  horses,  and  also  a 
pair  of  mules.  From  then  till  now,  I  "  kept  at  it "  pretty 
closely.  We  all  of  us  lived  well  enough,  got  supremely 
satisfied  with  the  capacities  of  the  soil,  raised  excellent 
truck  and  fruit,  and  this  day  I  have  all  my  land  cleared, 
thirteen  acres  thoroughly  stumped,  three  acres  set  to 
grape-vines;  three  acres  in  blackberries,  two  acres  in 
blackcap  raspberries,  half  an  acre  in  Philadelphia  rasp 
berries,  beside  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  apple-trees, 
three  hundred  and  seventy-six  pear-trees,  twenty  peach- 
trees,  with  some  currant  and  gooseberry  bushes,  all  in 
fine  growing  condition.  From  what  I  have  tested  in  the 
cultivation  of  sweet  and  Irish  potatoes  I  have  determined 
to  set  four  acres  in  each.  I  also  raise  every  year  lots  of 
garden  vegetables,  —  onions,  beets,  carrots,  parsnips, 
cabbages,  &c., — and  with  this  garden  produce  we  are 
highly  satisfied. 

My   dwelling-house,    which   I   intend  to  enlarge  and 
trim  up  generally  as  we  go  along,  is  of  wood,  sixteen  feet 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      165 

by  twenty-six  main  building,  with  an  L  thirteen  feet  by 
twenty-three,  all  one  story  and  a  half.  The  stables  are 
thirty-six  by  twenty-eight.  And,  by  the  bye,  this  leads 
me  to  state  that  I  intend  going  into  raising  grass  and  hay 
at  no  distant  day,  having  already  been  duly  deliberating 
on  that  subject,  as  a  thing  which,  by  proper  attention,  will 
pay  and  pay  well  in  Vineland.  The  nearest  calculation  I 
can  make,  as  to  what  I  have  done  in  Vineland,  and 
what  Vineland  has  done  to  me,  is  simply  this  :  I  know 
full  well,  from  comparison  and  the  offers  which  have  at 
times  been  made  to  me,  that  my  land  and  buildings  in 
their  present  state  show  a  market  value  of  at  least  Ten 
Thousand  Dollars  ($10,000),  and  that  my  machines,  teams, 
and  farming  implements  are  worth  at  least  Two  Thou 
sand  Dollars  ($2,000),  making  up  a  total  of  Twelve  Thou 
sand  Dollars  ($12,000),  which  I  call  my  Vineland  Industrial 
Luck.  In  fact,  we  would  not  by  any  means  sell  out  at  a 
much  higher  figure. 

I  have  never  found  any  place  like  Vineland  for  an  in 
dustrial  man  to  get  along  in.  Besides,  it  has  proven  itself 
to  my  experience  and  knowledge,  to  be  a  very  healthy 
place,  particularly  in  my  lung  diseases.  I  am  myself, 
for  all  my  hard  work,  in  a  much  better  condition  than 
I  had  been  for  long  years  before  moving  here.  I  need 
not  praise  our  pure,  sweet,  soft  water.  The  working 
season,  as  compared  with  that  of  Maine,  is  just  this  :  you 
can  work  out  from  May  to  October,  or  November,  at 
farthest,  in  that  "  upper  region ; "  here  you  can,  on  a 
fair  average,  improve  your  land  from  February  to  Christ 
mas,  and  sometimes  even  to  New- Year's  Day. 

My  son  and  daughters  have  helped  me  considerably  in 
work ;  but  they  were  all  well  paid.  In  fact,  except  a 
little  during  my  first  summer  here,  I  have  had  no  work 


1 66         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

whatever  done  for  me  which  has  not  been  strictly  paid 
for. 

My  family  has  not  had  one  single  fit  of  homesickness 
since  we  arrived.  They  are  so  highly  satisfied  with  Vine- 
land  that  none  of  them  would  leave  on  any  account.  Be 
sides,  all  my  children  have  been  well  married  in  Vineland. 

There  are  no  two  ways  about  it.  A  man  that  has  a 
mind  to  work,  and  has  some  ambition  in  him,  will  surely 
get  rich,  even  if  partially  crippled,  and  quite  as  poor  as  I 
was  when  commencing  operations  here.  But  if  a  man  will 
put  his  little  all  in  a  house  to  begin  with,  and  will  not  keep 
up  his  industry  and  ambition,  why,  then  he  deserves  not 
to  get  rich  anywhere,  and  he  has  only  himself  to  blame. 
Respectfully  yours, 

CHAS.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

I  have  said  that  I  know  of  nothing  exceptional 
in  this  case.  I  do  not,  however,  fail  to  remark, 
that  the  name  of  the  writer  is  that  of  a  family 
many  of  the  members  of  whom,  when  they  have 
emigrated  from  Maine,  have  done  so  to  some 
purpose,  for  themselves  and  for  their  country. 

Here  is  a  most  condensed  statement,  from  which 
I  have  attempted  carefully  to  prune  the  enthusiastic 
declarations  which  old  Vineland  settlers  always 
make,  of  how  much  they  like  the  place.  It  is 
the  history  of  a  town,  which  has  been  made  out  of 
nothing  in  eight  years,  without  remarkable  phy 
sical  advantages.  This  town  now  contains  twelve 
thousand  people,  living  in  great  comfort,  none  of 
whom  had  large  means  when  they  went  there.  It 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      167 

is  a  town  which  evidently  is  established,  and  has 
remarkable  prospects  in  the  future.  To  speak  of 
a  single  point  only,  which  settlers  will  appreciate, 
—  here  are  two  hundred  miles  of  well-built  roads, 
in  this  little  tract  of  say  forty  thousand  acres. 

It  seems  to  owe  its  growth  and  beauty  and  pros 
perity  to  a  few  general  principles  which  might  be 
carried  out  anywhere.  In  the  statement  of  a  Com 
mittee  at  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1867,  which  gave 
Mr.  Landis  a  medal  as  the  founder  of  Vineland, 
these  principles  were  stated  as  four. 

I.  That  the  land  should  be  laid  out  with  refer 
ence  to  practical  convenience. 

II.  That  it  should  be  laid  out  with  reference  to 
beauty. 

III.  That  societies  for  mutual  improvement  and 
entertainment   must   be   formed,   and    temperance 
enforced,  in  order  to  promote  the  physical  pros 
perity  and  mental  improvement  and  happiness  of 
the  people.      For   this,    also,   small    farming    and 
compact  population  are  considered  necessary. 

IV.  The  lands  and  town  lots  are  sold  to  actual 
colonists  only. 

From  these  principles  spring  the  details  thus 
described  in  the  same  paper  by  Mr.  Landis :  — 

MATERIAL   ELEMENTS. 

i.  The  general  plan  of  laying  out  the  land,  by  which 
peculiar  facilities  were  afforded  to  industrious  people  to 
obtain  land  for  homesteads.  To  accomplish  this  it  was 
laid  out  in  five,  ten,  and  twenty  acre  lots  and  upwards, 


1 68        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

at  a  small  price,  payable  in  one,  two,  three,  and  four 
years. 

2.  The  requirements  that  the  houses  in  the  town  plot 
be  set  back  from  the  roadside  at  least  twenty  feet,  and  on 
the  farm  lots  at  least  seventy-five  feet,  in  order  to  afford 
room  for  flowers  and  shrubbery. 

3.  Requiring  all  colonists  to  plant  shade-trees  upon 
the  roadside,  and  to  grass  the  roadsides. 

4.  Requiring  colonists  to  build  and  settle  upon  their 
lands  within  one  year,  and  selling  no  land  to  other  than 
actual  colonists. 

5.  The  introduction  of  fruit-growing  and  the  general 
improvement  of  agriculture  and  horticulture. 

6.  The  introduction  of  American  manufactures. 

7.  The  making  of  roads  and  other  improvements  at  my 
individual  expense. 

MORAL   ELEMENTS. 

1.  The  introduction  of  good  and  convenient  schools. 

2.  The    formation    of  agricultural    and    horticultural 
societies. 

3.  The   formation   of    church   societies,    for  the  en 
couragement  of  morality  and  religion. 

4.  The  formation  of  literary  societies  and  libraries. 

5.  The  introduction  of  a  new  temperance  reform,  which, 
in  its  practical  operation,  appears  to  do  away  with  all  the 
evils  of  intemperance. 

To  this  statement,  which  includes  the  secret  of 
the  prosperity  of  this  place,  I  add  the  following 
words  from  Mr.  Landis  himself. 

"  The  reason  why  many  settlements  fail  is  be 
cause  the  projectors  expect  to  make  an  easy  specu 
lation  of  them  without  much  labor  and  time,  and 


How  They  Live  in  Vineland      169 

because  they  have  no  definite  system  which  will 
insure  the  increase  of  the  value  of  lands  upon  the 
hands  of  the  purchasers,  as  well  as  the  general  pros 
perity  of  the  settlers. 

"  No  prosperous  settlement  can  be  made  with 
out  the  personal  application  by  the  proprietor  of 
much  care  and  labor  over  a  period  of  many  years. 
He  must  expect  to  make  the  enterprise  an  exclu 
sive  and  legitimate  business." 

I  believe  the  last  statement  to  embody  a  most 
essential  suggestion. 

Vineland,  in  short,  is  a  wilderness  settlement  in 
the  heart  of  civilization.  You  have  not  to  carry 
your  family,  your  furniture,  and  your  stores  a 
week's  journey  toward  the  West.  You  have  not 
to  wait  a  week  for  your  letters  from  the  home  you 
have  left  behind.  I  have  never  forgotten  the  mo 
ment  when  I  first  stepped  on  the  platform  of  the 
station  there.  I  was  in  a  new  settlement,  four  years 
only  from  the  wilderness.  The  people  were  that 
day  grubbing  up  the  brush  where  a  new  church 
was  to  stand,  in  a  spot  which  but  just  before  had 
been  forest.  From  the  car  there  landed  with  me 
two  families  of  the  settlers.  A  woman  with  one 
carried  a  canary-bird.  A  man  of  the  other  waited 
at  the  baggage-car  for  a  mould  of  Philadelphia  ice 
cream.  They  were  new  settlers,  —  acting  like  new 
settlers.  But,  if  they  chose,  they  had  canary-birds 
and  ice-cream  as  well.  The  incident  suggested  to 
me  the  contrast  between  Vineland  and  a  log-cabin 
in  township  No.  9,  in  the  seventh  range. 


HOW  THEY   LIVE   IN   BOSTON,   AND 
HOW  THEY   DIE   THERE 

"  ATAHERE  is  not  one  word  in  the  paper,"  said 
-•*  Laura,  as  she  threw  it  over  to  her  husband, 
both  of  them  sitting  on  the  piazza,  above  the  sea 
at  Manchester.  "  I  do  not  see  why  they  choose 
to  print  so  much  trash  from  day  to  day."  So  she 
took  up  "  Littell's  Living  Age,"  and  began  reading 
some  of  Crabb  Robinson's  bons-mots. 

For  fifteen  minutes  there  was  silence. 

Bernard  laid  down  the  paper  in  his  turn.  "  I 
hardly  see  why  you  say  there  is  nothing  in  the 
paper,"  said  he,  looking  a  little  pale  and  worried. 
"  It  is  true  there  is  no  battle,  and  there  has  been 
no  accident  on  the  Erie  Railroad  for  three  days ; 
but  this  account  of  the  death  of  these  poor  little 
children,  whose  fathers  and  mothers  loved  them  as 
much  as  you  and  I  love  Ben,  is  to  me  as  terrible 
as  a  battle,  and  cuts  as  near  home  as  a  railroad 
smash." 

"  Children,  —  my  dear  child,"  said  Laura,  pale 
in  her  turn  now.  "  I  saw  nothing  about  children. 
What  is  it?  Whose  children  were  they?  " 

Bernard  read :  — 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston      171 

From  Our  Own  Correspondent. 

The  mortality  of  the  infants  in  Bethlehem,  which  has 
made  every  Christian  mother  curse  the  name  of  Herod, 
is  more  than  equalled  in  the  terrible  suffering  which  I  do 
not  venture  to  describe.  The  ayuntamiento  appears 
powerless  in  the  havoc ;  the  physicians  give  me  no 
encouragement  that  the  plague  is  stayed.  With  my 
companions,  I  have  in  the  last  week  attended  at  the 
funeral  rites  of  seventy-five  of  these  little  innocents ;  and 
unless  we  receive  some  relief,  which  we  do  not  anticipate, 
I  shall  be  obliged  often  to  send  to  you  the  same  melan 
choly  information. 

"  Melancholy  information  !  "  said  Laura,  bitterly. 
"  Is  the  man  a  stone?  —  is  the  agony  of  a  baby 
and  is  the  wretchedness  of  the  mother  only  a 
paragraph  in  his  string  of  news?  Where  is  this,  - 
in  Mexico  or  in  Spain?  Why  did  not  I  see  it? 
Give  me  the  paper !  "  And  she  took  it. 

"  Why,  Bernard,"  she  said,  after  a  moment, 
reproachfully,  "  you  are  not  making  fun  of  me ! 
You  could  not  make  that  up  to  quiz  me !  " 

"  No,  darling,"  said  Bernard,  sadly,  looking 
over  her  shoulder;  "  I  only  added  the  words  for 
the  want  of  which  it  missed  your  eye.  There  is 
the  story,  enough  sadder  than  I  made  it,  and  the 
story  will  be  there  next  week,  and  next  week,  if  you 
take  pains  to  look  for  it.  Only  now  you  know  where 
to  look,  and  you  did  not  know  before.  The  trim 
ming  which  ladies  wear  on  their  summer  dresses  in 
Wiesbaden  is  so  important  that  these  people  can 
give  a  quarter-column  to  describe  that;  but  the 


172         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

death  of  seventy-five  infants  in  their  own  town  is 
only  worth  half  a  line  of  minion.  I  will  make  it 
a  little  clearer  for  you."  And  then  with  his  pencil 
he  drew  a  line  around  the  words,  CHOLERA 
INFANTUM,  75,  in  the  table  which  I  copy 
below :  — 

CITY  MORTALITY.  —  The  deaths  in  Boston  during  the 
week  ending  at  noon  to-day  numbered  196,  —  102  males, 
94  females.  Americans,  149 ;  Irish,  36 ;  English,  3 ; 
Scotch,  i  ;  Provinces,  4 ;  Germans,  2 .  Consumption 
had  20  victims ;  cholera  infantum,  75  ;  dysentery  and 
marasmus,  1 1  each ;  brain  diseases,  9 ;  cancer,  5  ;  diar 
rhoea  and  lung  disease,  4  each ;  accident,  apoplexy,  con 
vulsions,  intemperance,  peritonitis,  and  rheumatism,  3 
each  ;  diphtheria,  debility,  infantile  and  puerperal  diseases, 
typhoid  and  scarlet  fever,  old  age,  premature  birth,  2  each  ; 
anaemia,  inflammation  of  bowels,  croup,  dropsy,  fistula, 
exposure,  heart  disease,  measles,  necrosis,  paralysis,  scald, 
and  syphilis,  i  each.  American  parentage,  73 ;  foreign 
parentage,  123. — July  31,  1869. 

"  That  means,  dearest,  that  there  were  seventy- 
five  households  fighting  death  over  the  cradles  of 
their  babies  last  week,  and  that  seventy-five  fathers 
and  seventy-five  mothers  were  defeated,  and  that 
life  is  hardly  worth  living  to  them  now,  because 
their  little  ones  are  not.  If  it  were  half  round  the 
world,  and  if  it  were  an  ayuntamiento  that  was 
puzzled,  it  would  make  a  paragraph;  but  seeing 
it  is  only  in  Suffolk  Street  and  B  Street,  it  is  not 
of  so  much  consequence." 

"  Oh,"  said  Laura,  through  her  tears,  "  do  not  be 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     173 

bitter  about  it,  —  these  people,  as  you  call  them, 
are  no  more  careless  or  negligent  about  them  than 
I  am.  We  are  so  happy  here  and  the  children  are 
so  well,"  —  and  she  looked  anxiously  at  big,  bounc 
ing  Ben  in  his  wagon,  —  "  that  we  forget  there  are 
other  people  in  the  world.  Who  are  these  children? 
I  read  the  deaths  in  the  papers  every  day,  and 
there  have  not  been  many  names  of  children, — 
nobody's  name  that  I  knew." 

"No,  dear,"  said  Bernard  again,  "you  did  not 
know  them,  and  I  did  not,  and  they  are  not  the 
kind  of  people  who  send  their  deaths  or  their 
marriages  to  the  newspaper.  They  are  the  chil 
dren  of  the  people,  who  stand  up  to  their  knees  in 
water,  that  the  stones  may  be  laid  firm  that  support 
the  causeway  on  which  is  laid  the  gravel  that  your 
and  my  carriage  rolls  smoothly  over.  They  are 
the  people  who,  with  naked  skins  in  a  temperature 
of  a  hundred  and  ten  degrees,  wheel  the  coal  to 
the  retorts  that  there  may  be  gas  enough  at 
Selwyn's  to-night,  if  you  and  I  fancy  we  should 
like  to  go  and  see  Laura  Keene  in  '  Midsummer.' 
I  do  not  know,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  "  how  I 
should  have  this  cigar  in  my  mouth  at  this  moment 
if  there  were  not  a  good  many  of  such  people 
somewhere.  But,  for  all  that,  their  names  do  not 
get  put  into  the  newspapers  when  they  die,  unless, 
by  bad  luck,  somebody  kills  them." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  said  Laura,  rousing 
herself  with  something  almost  of  agony  in  her 
manner,  "  that  it  is  sickly  in  Boston,  and  that  I 


174        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

have  not  known  it  all  this  time?  That  Emily  is 
there  with  all  her  children,  in  the  midst  of  an 
epidemic,  and  that  I  have  not  known  a  word  about 
it?  That  was  not  kind!" 

"  No,  dearest,"  said  Bernard  again,  more  sadly 
than  before,  —  "  no,  dearest.  Emily's  children  are 
as  safe  as  yours,  probably  safer,  so  far  as  human 
wisdom  goes.  There  is  no  epidemic  in  Chestnut 
Street,  or  Mount  Vernon  Street,  or  Beacon  Street, 
or  in  Worcester  Street,  or  Chester  Square,  or  on 
Telegraph  Hill,  or  on  the  Highlands.  There  is  no 
epidemic  anywhere.  Only  where  people  live  six 
teen  families  in  one  house,  with  their  swill-barrels  in 
their  entries  and  their  water  draining  on  the  floors, 
the  chances  for  life  are  not  as  good  as  they  are  at 
Emily's  house,  where  each  child  has  a  bath  before 
she  goes  to  bed  and  a  room  of  its  own  to  sleep  in. 
All  I  mean  is  that  these  people  live  so  that  it  be 
comes  a  very  easy  matter  for  their  children  to  die." 

Laura  sat  in  silence  a  few  minutes,  pushing  by 
Crabb  Robinson  and  the  paper  both.  Then  she  said 
to  Bernard,  "  Why  is  it,  Bernard,  that  I,  who  have 
lived  all  my  life  in  Boston,  know  nothing  about  these 
places  that  these  poor  children  live  and  die  in  ?  " 

"Why  is  it,"  said  he,  "that  I  know  nothing 
about  them,  —  that  I  take  all  I  tell  you  from  the 
printed  report  of  some  poor  fellow  who  is  trying  to 
thorn  up  me  and  the  other  governors  of  this 
country  to  do  something  about  it?  It  is  simply 
the  old  story;  as  somebody  said  in  London, 
'  When  the  nice  people  of  Belgravia  and  the  rest 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston      175 

of  the  West  End  shall  be  making  their  answers  at 
the  day  of  judgment,  they  will  have  some  reason 
to  say,  "  When  saw  we  thee  sick  or  in  prison,  and 
did  not  minister  to  thee?  "  — even  after  it  has  been 
explained  to  them  that  seeing  one  of  the  least  of 
his  brethren  is  seeing  the  Lord.  For  in  Belgravia 
they  do  not  see  St.  Giles,  and  as  for  visiting  the 
prisoners,  they  would  find  it  hard  to  get  a  permit; 
and  as  to  feeding  the  hungry,  they  are  afraid  to 
give  them  potatoes  lest  they  should  turn  them  into 
beer.'  " 

"  I  don't  care  for  that,"  said  Laura.  "  I  do  not 
mean  to  be  cynical  or  satirical  about  this  thing.  I 
do  not  live  in  Belgravia,  and  there  is  no  place  in 
Boston  that  I  dare  not  go  to,  if  you  go  with  me. 
I  move  we  go  and  see  some  of  the  people  to 
morrow.  There  is  no  danger  that  it  would  hurt 
Ben,  is  there?" 

"  Not  the  slightest,  child,"  said  Bernard ;  "  we 
will  go  as  soon  as  you  like.  Will  you  be  ready  at 
the  10.28?" 

"  Yes,  or  earlier.  I  will  be  ready  for  the  early 
train  at  8.40.  We  will  drive  up  to  Beverly  and 
take  it  there." 

So  was  it  that  Laura  and  Bernard  made  the  fol 
lowing  observations. 

After  endless  charges  to  Katy  that  Ben  should  be 
kept  out-doors  till  he  took  his  nap ;  and  that  after 
his  nap  there  should  be  this  and  that  and  the  other, 
they  drove  to  Beverly  in  time  for  the  early  train. 


176         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

It  was  not  more  than  ten  minutes  late  in  Boston ; 
and  before  ten  o'clock  they  were  on  their  way  to 
the  City  Hall.  Laura  felt  all  the  excitement  that 
she  felt  when  she  first  entered  Paris.  For,  because 
she  had  lived  in  Boston  all  her  life,  almost  of 
course,  she  knew  nothing  about  it.  In  Paris  she 
had  been  taken  to  see  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  there 
was  a  good  deal  about  it  in  her  journal ;  in  Flor 
ence  she  had,  of  course,  gone  to  Uffizi ;  in  Lon 
don  she  had  been  taken  to  Guild  Hall  to  see  Gog 
and  Magog,  but  it  had  never  occurred  to  any  one 
who  managed  the  education  of  this  really  well- 
trained  young  lady  to  take  her  either  to  the  State 
House  in  Boston,  to  see  the  machinery  of  the 
government  of  the  State,  or  to  the  City  Hall,  to 
see  how  that  of  her  native  city  was  carried  on. 
There  were  pictures  at  the  Uffizi,  and  only  some 
photographs  at  the  City  Hall. 

So  there  was  all  the  interest  of  novelty  to  Laura, 
as  her  husband  led  her  up  the  palatial  stair 
way,  and  brought  her  into  the  City  Registrar's 
handsome  office.  There  was  a  little  of  the  fear 
that  she  was  out  of  her  place ;  but  this  vanished 
at  once  when  the  Registrar  so  courteously  re 
ceived  her  and  her  husband,  though  they  were 
both  strangers  to  him.  Bernard  introduced  him 
self,  and  said,  almost  abruptly,  being  himself  per 
haps  a  little  nervous,  "  I  am  sorry  to  see  you  had 
a  bad  week  last  week."  The  Registrar  understood 
him  on  the  moment,  spoke  of  the  seventy-five 
cholera-infantum  deaths,  and  gave  to  his  visitors 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     177 

such  detail  as  showed  to  them  at  once  that  he  was 
no  mere  man  of  figures,  and  that  his  tables  had  to 
him  the  terrible  interest  which  Bernard  had  given 
to  them  when  he  read  to  Laura.  The  Registrar 
stood  there  and  sounded  the  trumpet  week  by 
week,  and  that  with  no  uncertain  sound.  If  those 
children  died  when  there  was  no  necessity,  his  at 
least  was  not  the  reponsibility. 

He  had  at  once  invited  Laura  into  his  airy  and 
elegant  office,  and  had  given  her  a  chair.  In  a 
moment  more  he  brought  to  her  husband  the  large 
folio,  in  which  every  detail  reported  to  him  of  the 
deaths  of  the  last  week  was  written  down.  Bernard 
having  gained  his  permission  to  use  these  tables, 
explained  to  Laura  what  they  were  to  do. 

He  had  brought  with  him  a  little  memorandum- 
book,  which  he  gave  to  her,  that  she  might  copy 
upon  it  each  of  the  names  of  the  seventy-five  little 
children  who  had  died  from  this  single  disease. 
She  selected  these  from  all  the  other  deaths.  She 
did  not  enter  the  birthplaces  of  the  children,  nor 
the  names  of  their  fathers  and  mothers,  nor  the 
other  facts  which  she  found  in  the  Registry.  Her 
little  table,  which  I  will  only  copy  in  part,  assumed 
this  aspect:  — 

BOSTON.    CHOLERA  INFANTUM.    July  24-July  31,  1869. 

No.  i.  Mary  A.  Murphy,  i  y.  7  mos.,  22  Davenport  Street,  Ward  15 

2.  Sarah  Eaton,  2  mos.,  102  Portland  Street,  "  4 

3.  Edith  M.  Dillman,  5  mos.,  iQTrask  Place,  "  13 

4.  Gertie  F.  Tucker,  6  mos.,  Eutaw  Street,  "  i 

5.  John  McLaughlin,  8  mos.,  61  Prince  Street,  "  3. 

6.  Mary  McCarty,  2  mos.,  225  Havre  Street,  "  i. 
and  so  on.                                       12 


178         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

While  she  was  copying,  Bernard,  on  a  little  map 
of  the  city  he  had  with  him,  was  making  red  crosses 
with  a  pencil,  midway  in  the  streets  where  the 
deaths  occurred.  He  had  finished  almost  as  soon 
as  she  had.  Then  he  returned  the  Registry  to  the 
office,  with  his  thanks,  and  they  both  went  down 
again  to  the  carriage,  leaving  for  some  future  day 
an  investigation  of  the  various  curiosities  of  the 
City  Hall. 

"  Drive  to  Suffolk  Street,"  said  Bernard,  as  he 
entered  the  carriage ;  and  then  to  his  wife,  "  Well, 
darling,  it  begins  to  look  real  now.  How  much 
more  one  feels  it  when  he  sees  the  names  of  the 
little  things !  " 

"  Do  we  ever  feel  anything,  Bernard,  till  we  look 
at  it  piecemeal,  or  in  the  detail?  Did  you  notice, 
—  no,  the  figures  were  not  on  your  side  of  the 
book,  but,  Bernard,  almost  all  of  these  children  are 
less  than  a  year  old.  Now  we  always  thought  that 
the  second  year,  while  they  were  teething,  was  the 
dangerous  year  for  children.  But  see  there,"  and 
she  took  out  her  note-book,  "  in  my  first  twenty- 
two  names  there  is  Will  Sullivan,  three  years  old ; 
one  boy  of  one  year,  and  one  girl  of  one  year  and 
seven  months ;  and  all  the  others  are  less  than  a 
year."  She  found  afterwards  that  on  her  whole 
register  there  were  but  eight  who  had  passed  twelve 
months. 

"  Now,"  said  Bernard,  "  look  at  my  little  map." 
And  he  showed  her  the  map.  "  The  worst  street," 
said  he,  "  is  Island  Street,  down  on  the  flats  in  Rox- 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston      179 

bury,  where  the  bad  smells  come  from.  If  you 
had  ever  been  there  you  would  wonder  that  any  of 
them  were  left  alive.  But  of  old  Boston,  which  is 
all  we  can  do  to-day,  here  are  the  places." 

"Queer,"  said  Laura;  "  they  are  in  two  rows, 
with  a  white  belt,  half  a  mile  wide  between." 

"  Yes ;  but  that  belt,  you  see,  is  the  business  part 
of  the  town,  where  nobody  lives,  and  Fort  Hill, 
which  they  are  digging  down,  and  the  Com 
mon  and  Beacon  Hill.  Here  at  the  North  End 
is  Copp's  Hill ;  you  see  nobody  has  died  there. 
On  the  original  three  mountains  of  Boston,  on  its 
high  lands,  not  one  of  our  seventy-five  babies 
lived  or  died." 

Laura  studied  the  list  then  with  some  care. 
There  was  not  one  child  on  her  list  from  Beacon 
Street,  Chestnut  Street,  or  Pinckney  Street.  And 
it  was  not  merely  hillsides  that  were  exempt. 
There  were  no  deaths  in  Union  Park,  Worcester 
Street,  Springfield  Street,  Chester  Square  ;  not  one 
death  in  any  of  the  very  nice  streets  where  most 
of  her  friends  lived  and  she  visited  most.  And  the 
largest  parts,  as  she  had  said,  were  in  two  clumps 
together. 

"What  are  these  clumps?  "  said  she. 

"  This  on  the  north  is  what  used  to  be  called  the 
Millpond.  It  was  filled  up  half  a  century  ago.  Of 
the  thirty-seven  children  whose  homes  I  could  find, 
seven  lived  there. 

"  This  on  the  south  is  the  Church  Street  district, 
joined  to  the  region  north  of  Dover  Street.  They 


180         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

are  trying  now  to  raise  the  Church  Street  district. 
In  this  clump  there  are  fifteen  children. 

"  This  death  in  Eliot  Street  must  have  been  on 
upland ;  these  in  Russell  Place  and  Phillips  Place, 
and  these  in  Prince  Street,  Cooper  Street,  Holden 
Court,  Langdon  Place,  and  Samoset  Place,  at  the 
North  End.  But  of  all  the  other  thirty,  I  think 
the  homes  were  where  God  Almighty  made  the 
water  flow.  But  it  is  not  that  so  much.  It  is  that 
the  poor  wretches  have  no  air.  What  was  it  Sar 
gent  used  to  tell  us,  that  the  science  of  health  was 
the  science  of  getting  people  into  pure  air.  You 
shall  see  as  soon  as  we  set  foot  on  the  ground  what 
chance  there  is  for  breathing,  night  or  day.  They 
have  fared  well  enough  in  Rutland  Street,  Waltham 
Street,  Tremont  Street,  on  Commonwealth  Avenue, 
Newbury  Street,  and  Marlborough  Street,  though 
these  streets  are  all  on  made  land.  These  are 
well-drained  and  well-aired  streets.  Air  is  what 
you  want.  Now  look  here." 

The  carriage  stopped  at  the  corner  of  Dover  and 
Suffolk  Streets,  and  the  coachman  asked,  "What 
number?"  But  Bernard  dismissed  him,  telling 
Laura  that  for  what  was  left  they  had  better  go  on 
foot.  So  they  came  to  a  wooden  house,  with  rooms 
each  side  of  the  door,  two  stones  high  with  attics; 
not  so  large,  as  he  bade  her  observe,  as  the  house 
they  had  left  in  Manchester. 

"How  in  the  world  are  you  going  to  get  in?" 
said  Laura,  timidly. 

"  Oh,  I  shall  walk  in,"  said  Bernard,  and  he  did, 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     1 8 1 

the  door  being  wide  open.  He  tapped  at  the  first 
door,  and  immediately  a  stout  Irishwoman  ap 
peared,  to  whom  Bernard  addressed  himself.  The 
moment  there  was  any  evidence  of  conversation, 
she  was  joined  by  another  and  another. 

Bernard  whipped  out  a  little  note-book  and 
pencil. 

"  Can  you  tell  me,  ma'am,  how  many  families 
there  are  on  this  floor?  " 

"  There  's  four,  sir,  live  in  here,  and  this  woman 
lives  in  the  room  opposite." 

"  And  how  many  children  are  there?  " 

"  I  've  got  one  girl,  and  Mrs.  McDaniel  here,  she 
has  two  boys,  and  Mrs.  McEna  she  has  one  girl 
and  two  boys,  and  Mrs.  Liener  here,  she  has  one 
boy,"  and  Mrs.  Liener  blushed  and  was  pleased 
and  confirmed  the  statement.  Bernard  asked  if 
they  had  all  been  vaccinated,  and  was  assured  they 
had,  with  the  additional  assurance  that  the  Mc 
Daniel  boys  were  men  grown.  Meanwhile  Laura 
availed  herself  of  the  freedom  of  a  free  country  to 
look  into  the  rooms  right  and  left  of  her  which  the 
interlocutors  had  left  open  that  they  might  enjoy 
the  colloquy. 

Upstairs  then  proceeded  Bernard,  Laura  follow 
ing.  The  first  door  gave  no  answer  to  his  tap,  the 
second  was  wide  open,  and  Laura  saw  a  woman 
lying  on  the  bed,  not  asleep,  however.  Laura  took 
the  census  here,  —  there  was  this  woman,  who  had 
two  boys,  Mrs.  O'Brien,  who  had  one  girl,  and 
Jerry  Regan,  who  had  no  children,  who  occupied 


1 82        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

the  four  rooms  on  this  floor.  Upstairs  in  the 
attics  were  only  the  McDonalds  (other  McDonalds 
from  the  first  floor),  and  the  Farnums,  each  with 
one  boy.  Here  were  nine  families,  but  none  of 
them  were  named  K . 

So  Bernard  asked  the  second  Mrs.  McDonald  if 

there  were  not  a  little  child  named  K who 

died  here  last  week. 

"  Oh,  that,  sir,  was  in  the  basement,"  said  Mrs. 
McDonald.  And  it  proved  that  they  had  let  the 
basement  go  by,  not  suspecting  that  there  was 
any. 

Thus  far  the  twelve  rooms,  of  which  they  had  in 
spected  eight,  were  almost  exactly  alike,  but  that 
four  were  attics.  Rooms  nearly  square  and  about 
ten  feet  by  twelve.  Some  of  them  had  two  bed 
steads,  always  with  high,  cumbrous  head  and 
foot  boards,  while  in  one,  as  Laura  observed,  which 
had  a  cooking-stove,  there  was  no  bedstead.  Some 
of  them  were  tolerably  neat,  —  one,  in  which  the 
woman  was  lying  down,  hopelessly  dirty.  Of  the 
children  spoken  of,  they  had  only  seen  one.  He 
was  the  junior  McDonald,  in  the  attic,  who,  under 
the  auspices  of  Mrs.  McDonald  and  Mrs.  Farnum, 
was  walking  his  first  steps,  and  crowed  and  laughed 
at  the  visitors  very  prettily.  All  the  other  children 
had  sought  wider  quarters.  From  this  inspection 
they  went  down  the  narrow  stairways  into  what 
was  called  the  basement.  It  was  almost  wholly 
below  the  street,  and  in  no  way  differed  from  what 
is  usually  called  a  cellar.  Here  they  found  Mr. 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston      183 

Kellarin  and  Mrs.  West,  but  still  no  Mrs.  K . 

The  floor  of  the  entry  was  wet  from  the  overrunning 
of  the  water-faucet  which  supplied  the  house,  and 
all  the  region  was  damp,  as  a  cellar  is  apt  to  be 
which  is  much  below  the  tide  level.  Bernard  asked 
Mr.  Kellarin,  who  seemed  to  be  rather  cross,  if 

Mrs.  K did  not  live  here.  "  No,  —  no  such 

woman  here  ! " 

"  But  did  not  a  little  child  die  here  last  week?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  —  that  was  in  the  back  room ;  no  one 
is  there  now.  She  has  moved  next  door." 

"Thank  God  for  that,"  said  Laura  to  her  hus 
band,  as  they  crossed  the  wretched  alley.  "  Noth 
ing  can  be  worse  than  where  she  was." 

True  enough.  That  floor  was  wet  from  the  slop 
of  the  water.  The  air  was  wet,  because  the  sun 
never  kissed  it.  The  rooms  were  so  chilly  and  so 
dark  !  And  the  smell ! 

Across  the  alley  was  a  little  brown  house  about 
as  big  as  the  coachman's  house  at  Manchester.  It 
was  every  way  nicer  than  that  they  had  left,  though 

so  small.  Here  poor  Mrs.  K came  to  meet 

them  at  the  first  door.  Laura  felt  that  it  was  she, 
she  looked  so  sad  and  so  sick.  Just  a  black  rag 
of  some  kind  she  had  put  around  her,  and  when 
Laura  spoke  to  her  kindly  and  asked  about  her 
little  boy,  and  the  poor  woman  told  her  it  was  her 
only  child,  and  that  he  was  sick  such  a  little  while, 
the  two  women  were  sisters.  The  four  families  in 

this  house  were  all  young.  K ,  Leonard, 

Driscoll,  Agin,  with  their  wives,  —  they  all  had 


184         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

but  two  boys  and  one  girl,  —  only  seven  people  to 
live  in  four  rooms,  which  if  you  had  put  them 
together  would  have  made  a  room  twenty  feet 
square. 

In  the  house  opposite,  which  they  had  visited 
first,  were  thirty-one  persons  in  fourteen  so-called 
rooms.  What  had  been  the  yard  of  this  house 
had  been  taken  up  by  another  tenement  building. 

I  must  not  attempt  to  tell  in  such  detail  of  each 
of  the  visits  which  Laura  made  this  busy  morning. 
Bernard  told  her,  as  they  drove  back  to  the  train 
at  ten  o'clock,  that  she  had  knocked  off  more  calls 
in  her  three  hours  than  he  ever  did  in  his  most 
successful  work  of  his  most  successful  New  Year's 
Day  of  his  bachelor  life  in  New  York.  "  You  have 
added  to  your  visiting  list,"  said  he,  "  as  nearly  as 
I  can  make  it  up  at  this  moment,  thirteen  Mrs. 
Flahertys  and  twelve  gentlemen  of  that  name, 
eleven  Mrs.  Sullivans,  six  Mrs.  Feenans  and 
their  husbands,  three  Mrs.  McLanes,  and  two 
Mrs.  McTanes,  besides  miscellaneous  names  not 
to  be  mentioned." 

"  Well,"  replied  Laura,  stoutly,  "  I  wish  all  my 
other  friends  were  as  cordial  to  me  as  these  good 
women  have  been,  —  I  wish  they  would  be  half  as 
well  employed  when  I  called  on  them,  —  and  I 
wish,  on  the  whole,  that  they  made  as  much  of 
their  advantages  as  these  people  do  of  what  we 
cannot  call  their  advantages." 

It  is  certainly  true,  that  in  many  instances  the 
instinctive  vigor  of  a  woman,  and  that  Divine 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     185 

Principle  which  has  given  to  a  wife  the  establish 
ment  and  the  comfort  of  a  home,  —  which  among 
this  class  of  persons  is  a  principle  still  respected 
and  accepted,  —  sustain  the  women  who  are  forced 
to  live  in  these  crowded  cells  with  their  husbands 
and  children,  so  that  they  often  retain  decency, 
order,  and  even  neatness,  where  one  would  say  it 
is  impossible.  Sweetness  of  air,  freshness,  or 
cheerfulness,  it  is,  of  course,  wholly  beyond  their 
power  to  give. 

Laura  and  Bernard  had  been  snubbed  scarcely 
anywhere.  Once,  when  Laura  was  the  spokes 
woman,  and  asked  timidly,  "  Does  not  Mrs.  Weiss 
live  here?"  she  got  a  very  sharp  "No."  When 
poor  Laura  varied  her  question,  the  answer  was, 
"  No,  she  died  here ;  "  and  Laura,  who  had 
only  taken  note  of  children's  death  on  her 
memorandum-book,  found  that  mother  and  child 
had  died  together.  The  landlady,  to  whom  she 
was  talking,  knew  nothing  of  her  tenants,  —  or  pre 
tended  to  know  nothing,  —  and  made  haste  to  usher 
her  guests  out  of  the  wretched  grocer-shop,  where, 
if  they  had  asked  for  bad  whiskey,  they  would 
have  had  good  chance  for  more  cordial  welcome. 

They  called  at  one  house  which  always  reminds 
me,  as  I  go  to  my  train,  of  the  front  of  a  menagerie 
cage,  where  the  little  monkeys  may  be  seen  among 
a  few  of  larger  growth,  performing  behind.  It  is 
four  stories  high,  and  has  no  entry  or  hall  in  it, 
every  room  opening  by  its  one  door  on  the  four 
front  piazzas  which  rise  above  each  other.  Each 


1 86         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

room  has,  in  the  rear,  two  closets  only  lighted  from 
the  doors,  one  of  which  may  be  eight  feet  square ; 
the  other  is  narrower.  The  front  room,  which 
opens  on  the  piazza,  is  fifteen  by  thirteen  perhaps. 
This  is  a  suite  for  a  family.  And  any  day  you 
pass  you  may  see  the  children  of  forty  such 
families  disporting  themselves  on  the  piazzas.  The 
reason  why  there  are  no  windows  in  the  back  wall 
is  that  there  is  another  similar  building,  which  has 
been  squeezed  in  there  in  a  space  so  narrow  that 
it  is  not  nine  feet  from  the  windows  and  doors  to 
the  wall  opposite,  —  and,  of  that  nine  feet,  four  or 
five  must  be  given  to  the  piazza.  Stop  on  your 
way  down  Lincoln  Street,  Mr.  Alderman,  and  look 
at  that  building;  do  not  be  satisfied  with  the 
Lincoln  Street  front,  but  try  the  other  front,  and 
guess  what  are  the  chances  for  life  there.  As  the 
building  is  arranged,  it  will  "  accommodate,"  I 
believe,  sixty  families,  —  nearly  as  many  human 
beings  as  would  be  permitted  by  the  United  States 
statute  on  an  emigrant  vessel  of  the  same  size. 
Yet  on  the  emigrant  vessel  there  are  windsails  to 
pump  out  the  air,  —  there  is  the  certainty  of  fresh 
air  on  deck,  and  the  best  of  it.  And  there,  at  the 
worst,  the  imprisonment  is  but  for  a  few  weeks. 
But,  in  this  anchored  hell,  the  child  who  is  born 
must  live  five  years  before  he  has  wit  enough  and 
strength  enough  to  run  away. 

Here  are  Bernard's  notes  on  the  houses  where 
he  and  his  wife  first  called.  I  have  only  described 
the  first  tenement  of  the  first  two. 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     187 

13  EMERALD  STREET.  Two  tenement-houses  adjoin 
ing  each  other.  There  are  thirteen  families  in  one  and 
ten  in  the  other.  The  water-pipes  are  put  up  in  the 
most  shameful  manner.  They  must  of  necessity  freeze 
up  at  the  very  first  frost.  Only  one  faucet  for  each  tene 
ment-house,  —  /.  <?.,  twenty-three  families  have  two  faucets 
to  draw  from.  There  is  no  way  of  getting  to  the  faucet 
without  wading  in  dirty  water,  the  drains  being  all  out  of 
order.  Two  of  the  most  filthy  privies  entirely  open  for 
these  twenty-three  families,  so  much  out  of  repair  as  to 
be  dangerous  to  enter.  The  boards  are  broken  away, 
so  that  you  can  see  into  the  vaults.  The  only  reason 
why  the  people  in  the  house  are  not  all  dead  is  because 
they  keep  their  own  places  much  cleaner  than  anybody 
could  naturally  expect.  Miserable  places,  out  of  repair, 
the  plastering  off  the  walls  and  ceilings, —  no  chance  to 
whitewash,  for  there  is  no  place  to  whitewash  in  many  of 
the  rooms. 

TENEMENT- HOUSE  72  MIDDLESEX  STREET.  Sixteen 
families  live  in  this  house.  The  staircase  is  so  narrow 
and  dark  that  it  is  a  wonder  how  the  children,  with 
whom  it  abounds,  are  not  daily  injured.  In  the  event  of 
a  fire  it  might  be  that  not  one  of  the  families  upstairs 
could  be  saved.  There  is  very  fair  accommodation  here 
for  water.  No  water-closets,  however,  and  but  one  privy 
in  four  compartments  for  the  whole  sixteen  families. 
The  passages  below  are  in  a  filthy  condition,  owing  to 
unsuitable  arrangements  for  the  refuse. 

Their  whole  inspection  was  on  the  southern  side 
of  the  white  stripe  across  Bernard's  map.  And 
they  had  not  time  that  day  to  go  to  Island  Street. 
Once  or  twice  they  came  upon  nice,  cheerful 


1 88         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

houses,  where  Laura  said  the  people  had  good 
friends,  she  was  sure,  and  she  would  not  offer  her 
sympathy.  But  there  were  many  of  these  poor 
Irishwomen  who  were  glad  of  her  visit,  and  with 
whom  she  will  keep  up  her  visiting  acquaintance 
long. 

"  I  know,"  said  Laura,  as  they  rode  home,  "  that 
you  hate  to  be  constantly  making  laws,  and  con 
trolling  people  by  laws,  and  I  know  how  your  father 
says  that  the  best  government  is  that  which  gov 
erns  least;  but  I  should  think  something  might  be 
done  to  give  such  people  as  these  a  better  chance." 

"  My  dear,"  said  Bernard,  "  our  system  in  Mas 
sachusetts  about  laws  is  that  of  Ensign  Stebbins. 
We  take  great  pains  about  making  the  laws,  and 
we  take  equal  pains  to  let  them  alone  when  we 
have  made  them."  And  Bernard  took  from  his 
pocket  a  little  blue  pamphlet  which  contained  the 
tenement  law  of  1868. 

"  How  many  of  these  houses  had  a  fire-escape? 
Did  you  notice?  "  said  he. 

"  What  is  a  fire-escape?  "  replied  Laura.  "  Did 
any  of  them  have  one?" 

"  Not  that  I  saw,"  said  Bernard.  "  But  here  is 
the  act :  '  Every  such  house  shall  have  a  fire- 
escape/  That  is  Section  3.  From  Section  4  I 
learn  that  these  water-closets  in  Emerald  and 
Middlesex  Streets  must  have  been  '  approved  by 
the  Board  of  Health.'  From  Section  6,  that  that 
basement  in  Emerald  Street  could  not  have  been 
occupied  '  without  a  permit  from  the  Board  of 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     189 

Health ;  '  nor  at  all  unless  it  was  '  perfectly  drained.' 
From  Section  8  I  learn  that  all  these  houses  must 
( have  suitable  conveniences  for  garbage,'  and 
so  on,  and  so  on. 

"  How  many  times  have  you  noticed  the  owners' 
names  to-day?  " 

"  Not  once,"  stared  Laura. 

"Nor  I.  But  listen:  'Every  tenement  or  lodg 
ing  house  shall  have  legibly  posted  or  painted  on 
the  wall  or  door  in  the  entry  the  name  and  address 
of  the  owner/  —  that  is  the  law,  dear  Portia.  And 
here  is  the  law  about  whitewash :  '  Every  house 
thus  occupied  shall  be  whitewashed  every  April 
and  October.'  My  dear,  the  law  might  have  been 
made  for  Sybaris.  But  the  only  time  I  ever  heard 
of  a  prosecution  under  it,  an  ex-mayor  defended 
the  landlord,  knew  how  to  rip  up  the  indictment, 
and  that  was  the  end  of  that.  Oh,  there  is  law 
enough,  dear  child." 

"  Well,  what  can  we  do?  "  persisted  Laura. 

"  Do,  child  ?  We  can  make  public  opinion.  The 
first  time  Dr.  Shurtleff  asks  you  to  go  to  ride,  ask 
him  to  stop  and  call  with  you  on  some  friends 
of  yours  in  the  Crystal  Palace.  That  is  the  best 
thing  you  can  do." 

But  for  himself,  Bernard  sent  me  his  observa 
tions,  and  I  determined  to  print  them. 

I  confess  that  I  was  surprised,  when  I  first 
looked  over  this  list  of  seventy-five  deaths  by 
cholera  infantum  in  the  last  week  of  July,  to  see 


190         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

that,  of  the  whole  number,  twelve  were  in  the 
three  wards  which  are  made  of  the  territory  of 
Roxbury.  It  seemed  curious,  at  first  sight,  that 
the  mortality  in  a  so-called  country  town,  just  now 
annexed  to  the  compact  city,  should  be  even 
larger  in  proportion  to  the  population  than  that 
of  the  more  compact  section.  But  a  moment's 
examination  of  the  localities  removed  my  surprise. 
These  eleven  deaths  were  all  of  them  in  houses 
on  the  low,  flat  land,  which  would  once  have  been 
called  saltmarsh,  which  ought,  perhaps,  never  to 
have  been  built  upon  at  all,  without  such  elevation 
of  the  streets  as  should  give  proper  drainage  to 
the  houses.  All  of  them  but  two  or  three  proved, 
on  inquiry,  to  be  in  tenement-houses  of  the  most 
crowded  character. 

My  first  visit  among  them  was  in  Island  Street; 
it  is  not  yet  accepted  by  the  city,  which  takes  no 
responsibility  for  its  drainage  or  its  grading.  It 
will  be  known  by  residents  in  Boston  as  the  street 
which  leads  to  the  so-called  "  Island  "  where  were 
the  odious  bone-burning  establishments.  Here 
twin  children  had  died  in  a  hut,  standing  by  itself, 
worth  its  annual  rental  perhaps,  which  I  think 
would  be  considered  in  any  comfortable  country 
town  in  New  England  unfit  for  the  residence  of 
men,  but  which  here  was  regarded  by  its  occupants 
as  particularly  desirable  because  they  were  alone. 
Two  of  the  other  deaths  were  in  Adams  Street 
and  Chadwick  Street,  which,  though  they  run 
down  upon  the  flats,  are  occupied  by  a  class  of 


How  They  Live  and  Die  in  Boston     191 

tenements  much  superior  to  the  others.  I  visited 
every  tenement  in  Phoenix  Place,  which  is  a  fair 
enough  illustration,  in  its  melancholy  uniformity, 
of  the  whole  class.  It  is  a  narrow  court  of  eight 
houses,  —  four  on  each  side.  They  are  lightly 
built  of  wood,  all  on  the  same  plan.  The  two  end 
houses  have  each  a  shop  in  one  side.  All  the 
houses  are  parted  in  the  middle  by  an  entry  with  a 
staircase ;  —  on  each  side  of  this  entry  is  a  "  suite  " 
of  rooms,  always  two.  In  no  case  did  I  find  any 
family  occupying  more  than  these  two  rooms. 
Deducting  the  shops,  then,  here  were  thirty  tene 
ments,  —  each  of  two  rooms,  —  and  these  were 
occupied  by  thirty  families,  of  which  the  smallest 
was  a  man  and  his  wife,  —  the  largest  a  man  and 
his  wife  with  eight  children.  The  population  was 
sixty  adults  and  sixty-five  children  in  the  sixty 
rooms,  each  of  which  was  perhaps  twelve  feet 
square.  The  summer  atmosphere  of  these  places 
is  odious,  but  I  believe  it  is  better  than  the  winter 
atmosphere.  The  houses  have  the  great  advantage 
of  standing  separately  from  each  other,  so  as  to  ad 
mit  of  end  windows,  and  ventilation  between  every 
series  of  four  tenements.  But  the  lots  are  so  small 
that  all  privy  arrangements  and  deposits  of  offals 
are  horribly  near  the  open  windows.  The  wretched 
way  in  which  a  woman  in  such  a  house  tells  you 
that  her  baby  died  yesterday,  as  if  the  child  died  of 
course,  and  she  never  ought  to  have  expected  that 
it  would  live,  is  a  sad  enough  intimation  that  the 
tenants  themselves  know  the  risk  they  are  running. 


192         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

I  have  not  cared  to  go  into  detail,  however. 
My  object  is  accomplished  in  calling  attention  to 
the  single  fact  that  of  these  eleven  deaths  in  Rox- 
bury,  by  cholera  infantum,  not  one  took  place  on 
the  proper  upland.  In  the  mortality  of  the  same 
week  in  the  peninsula  of  old  Boston,  out  of  thirty- 
eight  such  deaths,  none  took  place  on  either  of 
the  hills,  and  only  eight  on  land  which  had  never 
been  flowed  over  by  the  sea. 

In  the  epidemic  among  children  in  the  summer 
of  1864  one  thousand  children  of  less  than  five 
years  of  age  died  in  Boston  in  one  hundred  days. 
I  suppose  that  of  the  Boston  people  who  read 
these  pages  not  one  in  ten  knows  that  there  was 
any  such  epidemic.  It  did  not  rage  among  the  chil 
dren  of  people  who  read  Fields  and  Osgood's  books ; 
it  raged  in  such  places  as  I  have  been  describing. 

If  the  deaths  had  been  proportional  among  all 
classes  of  society,  at  least  ten  of  these  deaths 
would  have  taken  away  infants  from  the  parish  of 
which  I  am  a  minister,  which  embraces  about  one 
per  cent  of  the  population  of  the  city. 

But  that  is  a  body  of  people  in  comfortable  cir 
cumstances,  living  in  comfortable  homes.  And, 
in  fact,  in  that  epidemic  not  one  of  our  children 
died.  So  untrue  is  it  that 

"  Pallida  mors  aequo  pulsat  pede  pauperum  tabernas 
regumque  turres."  x 

1 "  Pale  death  steps  on  with  equal  step  ;  although 
A  hut  or  palace  is  the  scene  of  woe." 


HOMES  FOR  BOSTON   LABORERS 

IN  addition  to  the  statement  I  have  made, 
as  to  the  houses  in  which  the  greater  part  of 
the  laboring  men  of  Boston  live  with  their  families 
at  the  present  moment,  I  am  tempted  to  add  some 
facts  as  to  the  details  of  the  arrangements  which 
might  be  made  for  them.  They  might  all  own 
their  houses,  —  as  so  many  of  the  laboring  men  do 
in  our  smaller  cities,  —  and  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
follow  up  their  daily  work  in  the  very  heart  of 
Boston.  To  illustrate  this  possibility,  I  have  pub 
lished  here  the  ideal  sketch  of  the  life  of  the 
suburbs  of  Naguadavick.  To  show  some  of  the 
detail  in  practice,  I  have  published  the  historical 
sketch  of  Vineland  and  its  neighborhood.  The 
object  of  this  volume  is  not  fulfilled,  unless  it  shows 
how  similar  arrangements  may  be  carried  out  for 
the  laboring  men  of  Boston. 

I  know  very  well  that  many  persons  suppose  that 
such  arrangements  are  made  thoroughly  well  now. 
They  know  that  there  are  a  great  many  pretty 
villages  around  Boston,  from  which  crowded  special 
trains  run  in  every  morning,  and  to  which  they 
return  at  night.  And  people  who  will  read  this 

13 


194        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

book  will  be  apt  to  say  that  anybody  who  wants  to 
live  in  Melrose  or  Newton  or  Hyde  Park  now  can 
do  so ;  that  there  needs  no  urging  either  of  capi 
talist  or  of  laborer ;  that  the  residence  of  laboring 
men  in  the  suburbs  is  a  thing  which  will  settle 
itself,  and  may  be  left  to  settle  itself. 

I  am  to  reply, 'then,  to  this  comfortable  laissez 
faire  notion  first  of  all.  I  have  to  say,  that,  as 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  true  that  what  we  call, 
popularly,  the  laboring  men  and  women  of  Bos 
ton  live  in  any  considerable  numbers  in  the  suburbs 
reached  by  railway.  Many  of  them  live  in  Charles- 
town,  Roxbury,  and  South  Boston,  where  they  can 
use  the  short  lines  of  street  cars  to  go  to  their 
morning  work.  But  this  number,  even,  is  incon 
siderable,  compared  with  the  large  number  of  day- 
laborers  needed  for  the  day's  work  of  the  city. 
Of  the  classes  of  skilled  workmen,  of  whom  we  do 
not  speak  as  day-laborers,  a  considerable  propor 
tion  live  in  the  suburbs  accessible  by  steam,  —  the 
places  where  they  can  obtain  freehold.  Mechanics, 
clerks  in  retail  or  wholesale  stores,  bankers'  clerks, 
and  other  persons  whose  incomes  are  a  little  above 
the  wages  of  the  day-laborer,  so  called,  avail  them 
selves  freely  of  the  relief  which  even  in  their  pres 
ent  management  the  steam  railroads  give,  and 
bring  up  their  children  thus, — where  only,  per 
haps,  children  should  be  brought  up,  —  in  the 
country.  But  the  number  even  of  these  who  are 
thus  provided  for  is  much  smaller  than  could  be 
wished;  and  the  arrangements  in  many  regards 


Homes  for  Boston  Laborers        195 

are  cumbrous  and  inconvenient.  Granting,  how 
ever,  that  they  can  take  care  of  themselves,  there 
is  left  the  much  larger  class  of  women  who  work 
in  shops  or  stores,  and  the  class,  yet  larger,  of  men 
who  work  as  porters,  or  stevedores,  or  as  hod-car 
riers,  or  at  other  hard  labor  in  building  or  in  fac 
tories,  —  who  live,  as  they  suppose  from  necessity, 
in  such  hired  tenements  as  have  been  described. 
They  no  more  think  of  the  possibility  of  their 
purchasing  their  own  homes  than  they  think  of 
translating  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Of  one  hundred 
and  thirty  sewing-women  engaged  at  Jordan  & 
Marsh's  sewing-rooms,  September  7,  1869,  ninety- 
three  lived  in  Boston  proper,  twenty-three  in  South 
Boston  and  East  Boston,  and  only  fourteen  out 
of  town.  Of  eighty- two  the  same  day  at  work  at 
Hovey  &  Co.'s,  forty-five  lived  in  Boston  proper, 
twenty-seven  in  South  Boston  and  East  Boston, 
and  only  ten  out  of  town. 

I  have  to  say,  next,  that  emigration,  though  it 
be  only  emigration  for  ten  miles,  has,  in  fact,  never 
thriven  in  this  world,  unless  it  has  been  well  led. 
Unless,  at  one  or  another  period  of  the  emigration, 
the  way  has  been  smoothed  and  prepared  by  men 
of  intelligence,  and  by  the  union  of  the  several 
interests  engaged,  no  emigration  has  ever  gone 
forward  prosperously.  The  people  of  this  country 
are  utterly  indifferent  to  what  they  owe  to  the  men 
who  contrived  the  magnificent  system  of  the  Land 
Laws  of  the  United  States,  which  of  themselves 
give  exactly  the  encouragement  to  the  Western 


196         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

emigrant  that  I  would  secure  for  the  emigrant 
whom  I  would  lead  from  Lucas  Street  into 
Dorchester  to-day.  And,  for  an  instance  on 
the  other  side,  the  reason  that  the  South,  eager  for 
emigration  to-day,  cannot  lure  the  laboring  men 
it  needs  into  its  waste  field  by  all  its  magnificent 
promises,  is  because  no  set  of  men  care  enough 
for  that  wave  of  civilization  to  put  themselves  hu 
manely  and  deliberately  at  work,  on  a  large  scale, 
for  the  organization  of  emigration  southward. 

In  the  old  communities  of  Greece  this  thing  was 
better  understood.  To  lead  a  colony,  and  thus 
to  establish  a  state,  was  considered  by  Miltiades, 
and  Themistocles,  and  Alcibiades,  and  Lysias,  and 
Isocrates,  —  not  to  name  a  hundred  others,  —  as 
being  an  honor  as  great  as  man  could  claim.  I 
wish  there  were  more  of  such  ambition  among  the 
young  men  of  spirit,  of  fortune,  or  of  education, 
whom  I  meet  every  day,  wondering  and  even  ask 
ing  what  America  has  for  them  to  do,  now  that 
the  war  is  over.  I  am  told  that  Lord  Bacon 
classed  the  founders  of  cities  among  the  first  of 
men. 

As  the  people  of  Naguadavick  found,  —  in  the 
experience  of  their  history  contained  in  this  vol 
ume, —  the  enterprise  of  establishing  a"  suburb  of 
ease  "  for  laboring  men  near  a  great  city  requires 
the  co-operation  of  three  sets  of  people,  who  are 
wholly  unused  to  act  together.  It  requires  the 
co-operation  of  the  owner  of  land,  of  the  managers 
of  the  railway,  and  of  the  settlers  who  are  to  buy 


Homes  for  Boston  Laborers        197 

their   homes.     Neither  of  these  will  move,  if  he 
have  not  confidence  in  the  other. 

1.  The  owner  of  the  land  must  be  willing  to  de 
vote  from  six  hundred  to  a  thousand  acres  within 
half  an  hour's  ride  by  steam  of  the  city  to  the 
enterprise.     He  must  look  for  sure  but  not  exor 
bitant  profits,  to  be  secured  within  ten  years. 

2.  The  railroad  managers  must  look  to  the  grow 
ing  up  of  traffic  where  at  the  beginning  there  is 
absolutely  nothing ;   and,  because  that  traffic  is  to 
be  all  their  own,  they  must  at  the  outset  provide  for 
it  much  more  accommodation  than  its  present  re 
turns  will  warrant.     It  is  at  this  point,  as  I  believe, 
that  most  such  plans  break  down.     The  companies 
are  willing  to  sell  their  tickets  cheap  enough,  but 
they  are  not  willing  to  run  their  trains  at  the  out 
set  often  enough  or  fast  enough.     They  want  the 
village  to  exist  before  they  grant  the  trains.     But 
nobody  will  go  to  the  village  until  they  grant  the 
trains. 

3.  No  one  laboring  man  will  bell  the  cat  in  such 
an  enterprise.     No  one  will  go   alone,  —  nor  will 
ten  families  go    alone.     The  provisions   must   be 
generous  enough  to  induce  at  once  general  atten 
tion  among  large  numbers  of  people,  or  they  will 
none  of  them  move.     The  reasons  for  their  hesi 
tation  are  obvious. 

I  am  glad  to  believe  that  at  the  present  time 
there  are  good  reasons  for  expecting  the  frank  and 
generous  co-operation  of  all  these  classes  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Boston  upon  the  true  principles 


198         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

which  may  insure  success.  The  questions  con 
nected  with  such  emigration  have  been  discussed 
more  than  any  others  at  the  meetings  of  the  Suf 
folk  Union  for  Christian  Work.  They  never  came 
up  for  discussion  there,  but  some  intelligent  man, 
who  had  watched  the  present  difficulties,  brought 
forward  some  important  contribution  toward  their 
solution.  The  lines  of  railway  running  from  Bos 
ton  are  so  many,  and  pass  through  country  so 
favorable  for  the  purposes  proposed,  that  every 
thoughtful  traveller  sees  the  possibility  of  relieving 
the  city  by  colonies  in  its  neighborhood.  Fortu 
nately  these  railways  are  under  the  management  of 
men  who,  in  general,  understand  that  their  interests 
and  the  interests  of  the  public  are  identical  in 
these  matters.  And  the  present  condition  of  the 
worst  tenement-houses  in  Boston  is  such  as  to 
compel  the  attention  of  laboring  men  and  their 
families  to  any  well-considered  arrangements  for 
their  relief.  Indeed,  if  the  trade  and  manufacture 
of  Boston  are  to  enlarge  in  the  next  twenty  years 
in  the  same  proportion  as  in  the  last  twenty,  some 
systematic  provision  of  healthy  homes  for  her 
laboring  men  and  women  is  the  very  first  neces 
sity  of  all. 

I  have  attempted  in  this  volume  to  show  that 
that  provision  may  be  made  by  a  system  which 
shall  involve  the  following  details :  — 

I.  A  village  site  of  say  a  thousand  acres. 

II.  This  must  be  generously  laid  out  by  the  pro 
prietors,  who    must   maintain  on  the  spot  active 


Homes  for  Boston  Laborers        199 

agents,  to  care  for  the   proper   condition    of  the 
town  till  it  can  go  alone. 

1.  These  agents  must  keep  the  roads  in  condi 
tion. 

2.  They  must  see  that  drainage  is  systematically 
cared  for. 

3.  In  some  localities  it  may  be  necessary  that 
the  first  owners  sink  the  wells. 

4.  All   negotiations  with  the  railroads  must,  at 
the  outset,  be  made  by  the  first  owners. 

III.  The  land  should  be  divided,  for  our  purpose 
near  Boston,  into  lots  of  about  10,000,  20,000,  and 
40,000  feet,  to  provide  for  settlers   of  various  re 
sources.     These  lots  should  be  offered  for  sale  on 
easy  terms,  with  great  encouragement,  however,  for 
cash  payments.     Mr.  Landis  requires   one  fourth 
down,  and  the  remainder   in   three    payments    in 
three  successive  years.     The  Illinois  railroads  re 
quire  one  tenth  down,  and  the  remainder  in  nine 
payments  in  nine  successive  years.     Probably  the 
first   arrangement  is  the   better  for   our   purpose 
here. 

The  price  of  lots  having  been  fixed  at  the  out 
set,  so  as  to  give  a  handsome  profit  to  the  original 
landholder,  should  never  be  changed  by  him. 

All  sales  should  be  made  on  condition  of  con 
siderable  improvements  to  be  made  within  twelve 
months.  This  is  necessary  to  assure  the  first 
settlers  of  neighbors  and  society,  and  to  prevent 
land  speculation. 

IV.  The   co-operation  of  the   original  holders 


200        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

with  the  settlers  in  all  enterprises  of  social  im 
provement,  education,  and  amusement  must  be 
heartily  and  intelligently  granted. 

V.  The  railroad  companies,  looking  to  the 
steady  growth  of  such  a  village,  must  provide  from 
the  first,  and  must  assure  trains  of  cars  which  will 
place  the  laboring  man  at  his  work  in  Boston  at 
seven  in  summer  and  at  eight  in  winter. 

It  has  been  proposed  by  Mr.  Quincy,  who  has 
taken  so  cordial  an  interest  in  such  plans,  that 
most  of  these  companies,  for  the  foundation  of  a 
new  village  in  the  view  here  advocated,  shall  give 
a  free  ticket  for  five  years  to  each  head  of  a  family 
who  will  build  a  house  in  such  a  town.  Then  rely 
on  the  travel  of  the  members  of  his  family,  and  of 
other  persons,  for  their  profit.  This  seems  to  me 
honorable,  simple,  and  satisfactory.  I  should  ask 
nothing  more  in  addition  but  careful  study  of  the 
hours  of  trains  required  by  laboring  men,  and 
some  security  for  their  permanence. 

As  to  the  methods  by  which  such  men  are  to 
get  the  money  with  which  to  build  their  houses,  I 
will  add  a  few  words;  but  I  do  not  believe  the 
difficulty  in  the  business  will  be  found  there. 

Mr.  Quincy  has  published  in  the  daily  journals 
details  of  the  co-operative  house-building  systems 
of  Philadelphia  and  of  England,  which  have  worked 
so  satisfactorily  that  I  need  only  refer  readers  who 
are  interested  to  them.1 

1  See,  for  one  of  such  plans,  Appendix  A. 


Homes  for  Boston  Laborers        201 

I  am  assured  that  at  Hyde  Park,  near  Boston, 
the  public  offer  is  made  by  responsible  parties, 
that  they  will  lend  to  any  person  who  proposes  to 
build  there  three  thousand  dollars  for  that  purpose, 
if  he  invest,  besides,  three  hundred  dollars  of  his 
own,  and  pledge  the  whole  to  them.  They  are  so 
confident  of  the  increase  of  the  value  of  real  prop 
erty  in  that  town,  that  they  are  ready  to  lend  on 
mortgage  of  real  estate,  with  so  small  a  margin,  at 
the  present  time.  This  is  an  illustration  of  the 
facilities  offered  in  such  places. 

In  the  German  savings-banks  there  is  a  system 
which  carries  out  with  great  simplicity  the  co 
operative  idea.  The  managers  of  those  banks  dis 
count  regularly  to  their  depositors,  on  a  regulation 
universally  understood.  It  is  this  :  Any  depositor 
who  can  get  two  fellow-depositors  to  indorse  for 
him  can  obtain  a  discount  from  the  savings-bank, 
which  thus  becomes,  not  a  bank  of  deposit  for 
small  sums  only,  but  a  bank  of  discount  for  small 
sums.  In  the  town  of  Worcester,  to  which  I  have 
already  alluded  in  these  pages,  its  prosperity 
is  largely  due  to  the  readiness  with  which  the 
capitalists  of  the  town  have  assisted  the  young 
mechanics  and  laborers  in  establishing  themselves. 
It  is  this  readiness  to  give  credit  on  fair  terms 
which  has  done  so  much  to  make  that  a  place  of 
FREEHOLD. 

The  details  of  the  German  system  are  given  by 
Mr.  Godkin  in  his  valuable  paper  published  in  the 
"  North  American  Review  "  two  years  ago. 


202         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

I  apprehend,  therefore,  that  working  men  and 
working  women  will  have  no  real  difficulty  in  build 
ing  houses  for  themselves  or  in  buying  houses 
ready  built,  so  soon  as  the  places  are  arranged 
where  these  houses  shall  stand.  The  social  con 
dition  might  return  of  the  agricultural  New 
England  town  of  two  generations  ago,  in  which  a 
rented  house  was  an  exception  to  the  general  rule 
and  habit  of  the  community.  The  large  rents 
which  laboring  men  are  now  accustomed  to  pay 
have  trained  their  families  in  habits  of  economy 
which  will  make  it  very  easy  for  them  to  obtain 
dwellings  of  their  own,  as  soon  as  these  dwellings 
are  offered  to  them.  For  the  cells  which  have 
been  described  on  page  186  the  weekly  rent  is  two 
dollars  for  one  room  and  the  two  dark  closets  ad 
joining.  This  is  about  the  lowest  rent  which  any 
laboring  man  with  a  family  pays  for  a  home  in 
Boston.  Most  of  them  pay  more.  It  is  easy  to 
see  how  fast  an  annual  payment  of  only  one  hun 
dred  and  four  dollars  a  year  will  eat  up  the  princi 
pal  and  the  interest  of  such  a  home  as  such  a  man 
may  build  for  himself  the  moment  land  is  offered 
him  at  a  fair  price.  And  the  passion  for  Freehold 
is  not  extinguished  among  these  people  by  a  gen 
eration  or  more  of  tenant  life.  It  is  pleasant  to 
conceive  the  ready  response  they  would  make  to  a 
programme  like  this,  put  in  their  way  in  the 
columns  of  their  friends,  the  "  Boston  Herald  "  or 
"Boston  Pilot,"  handed  in  to  their  doors  on  a 
broadside,  or  posted  at  the  street  corners :  — 


Homes  for  Boston  Laborers        203 


Buy  Yourself  a  Home 

One  Hundred  neat  Houses  are  for  sale  in  the 
new  Village  of 

MONTGOMERY 

ONLY  TWENTY  MINUTES'  RIDE  FROM  BOSTON! 

By  a  weekly  payment  of 
ONLY    THREE    DOLLARS, 

any  man  may  own,  in  six  years'  time,  a  pretty 
House  and  a  Garden 

RENT    FREE! 


Large  deductions  can  be  made  to  purchasers  who 
have  cash  in  hand. 

Free  Railroad  Ticket  for  Five  Years  ! 


An  announcement  like  this  would  show  very 
soon  that  the  laboring  class  of  people  are  not  with 
out  reserved  funds  to  draw  upon,  if  they  have  only 
a  simple  and  safe  way  to  place  them  in  real  estate 
for  their  own  uses. 


APPENDIX 


THE   Constitution   of  a   Co-operative    Society   for 
Building,  which  has  worked  well  in  Philadelphia, 
is  explained  in  the  following  letters  from  Mr.  Quincy  and 
Mr.  Davis. 

MODERATE  HOUSES  FOR  MODERATE  MEANS 

I  would  now  call  your  attention  to  a  communication 
sent  to  me  by  Edward  M.  Davis,  of  Philadelphia,  de 
scribing  the  workings  of  an  association  of  which  he  is 
President,  calculated  to  aid  the  frugal  and  industrious  in 
securing  homes  now  payable  otit  of  future  earnings;  — 

It  is  called  a  Building  Association,  but  should^  called  a 
"  Co-operative  Deposit  and  Loan  Company,"  as  it  does  not 
have  homes  built,  but  does  receive  and  loan  money. 

There  are  74  members  and  1,000  shares.  None  of  the 
officers  receive  pay,  except  the  Secretary,  and  he  only  $2  a 
month.  The  Treasurer  gives  bonds  for  $1,000,  but  seldom 
has  over  $50  to  $100  on  hand,  as  the  money  is  generally 
loaned  the  same  night  it  is  paid  in  to  the  association,  We 
meet  in  a  schoolhouse  and  have  no  rent  to  pay.  Fuel  and 
a  janitor  costs  us  about  $15  a  year.  It  is  conducted  for  the 
benefit  of  the  members,  and  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  officers, 
as  is  the  case  with  many  loan  associations. 


206        Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

The  receipts  of  the  association  are :  — 

i  st.  "  Dues  "  of  members,  consisting  of  fifty  cents  a  share, 
payable  monthly. 

2d.  Fines  of  five  cents  a  share  each  month  as  penalty  for 
failure  to  pay  punctually. 

3d.  Premiums  on  money  loaned  paid  by  members  who 
borrow. 

4th.  Interest  received  monthly  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent 
per  annum  on  money  loaned.  When  from  these  sources  the 
shares  are  worth  $100  each,  a  distribution  is  made  in  the 
proportion  in  which  the  stock  is  held,  and  the  association 
comes  to  an  end. 

Only  members  can  borrow  money,  Each  one  can  borrow 
$100  for  each  and  every  share,  but  not  over  $1,500  at  one 
time.  The  borrower  must  give  to  the  association  as  security 
a  first  mortgage  on  real  estate  for  the  amount  borrowed,  and 
if  there  are  buildings,  they  must  be  insured  and  the  policy 
transferred  to  the  association.  The  borrower  must  also 
transfer  the  stock  on  which  he  borrows ;  must  pay  the 
premium  cash;  pay  his  dues  and  interest  punctually,  and 
all  expenses  of  conveyancing. 

Our  association  was  started  twenty-two  months  since.  As 
fifty  cents  each  month  has  been  paid  on  each  share,  the 
amount  paid  in  is  $11,  but  the  shares  are  worth  $14.10 ;  the 
difference  has  been  made  out  of  premium,  interest,  and  fines. 
Judging  from  the  operations  of  other  similar  associations,  by 
the  time  $60  has  been  paid  in  by  members  as  "  monthly  dues," 
the  shares  will  be  worth  $100  each;  that  is,  the  association 
will  hold  claims  on  the  real  estate  of  the  members,  and  cash 
on  hand,  amounting  to  $100,000. 

The  loans  are  made  by  the  President,  stating  that  there 
are,  say,  $500  in  the  treasury,  but  that  he  will  sell  $1,500  if 
it  is  wanted,  payable  out  of  the  first  money  in  the  treasury. 
Some  one  is  willing  to  pay  five  per  cent  premium  for  it, 
another  eight  per  cent,  others  more,  and  so  on  until  it 
reaches,  say,  twenty  per  cent.  The  buyer  has  fifteen  shares, 
and  says  he  will  take  the  $1,500.  He  gives  security  for 


Appendix  207 

$1,500,  and  pays  interest  monthly  on  the  $i  ,500,  but  the 
premium  of  $300  is  deducted,  and  he  gets  only  $1,200  in 
money.  His  monthly  dues  are  $7.50  and  his  interest  $7.50. 
He  therefore  pays  $15  a  month  until  the  shares  are  worth  on 
the  books  $100  ;  then  his  mortgage  is  handed  back,  marked 
paid,  his  policy  retransferred,  and  his  home  is  clear.  This 
occurs  at  the  same  time  necessarily  with  every  borrower,  for 
it  is  not  regulated  by  what  he  pays  for  his  money,  or  when 
he  gets  it,  but  by  \he  period  when  the  shares  amount  to  $100. 
When  they  do,  all  the  borrowers  are  out  of  debt.  If  there  is 
cash  on  hand,  it  belongs  to  those  who  have  not  borrowed, 
and  will  be  just  $100  a  share  for  them. 

The  time  that  it  takes  for  a  society  to  "  run  out,"  as  it  is 
called,  depends  mainly  on  \h.z  premiums  paid.  If  they  are 
low,  the  period  is  over  ten  years.  If  they  could  average 
twenty  per  cent,  the  period  would  be  much  shorter.  Money 
borrowed  in  the  first  year  of  the  association  at  twenty-five 
per  cent  premium  does  not  cost  the  borrower  quite  eight  per 
cent  per  annum.  Then  he  has  these  great  advantages :  he 
can  borrow  an  amount  almost  equal  to  the  cost  of  his  prop 
erty;  can  return  it  in  small  sums,  and  in  addition  partici 
pate  in  the  profits  made  by  the  association.  It  is  the  true 
mode  of  getting  a  home  out  of  future  earnings.  Being  the 
prospective  owner  of  the  place  occupied,  all  the  improve 
ments  inure  to  him.  This  system  makes  our  small  houses 
more  tastily  and  insures  their  being  kept  in  better  order, 
because  a  home  that  is  owned  is  more  cared  for  than  one 
that  is  rented.  I  think  that  what  are  called  building  asso 
ciations  contribute  much  more  towards  securing  homes  to  our 
mechanics  and  laboring  people  than  our  ground-rent  system. 

A  person  paying  $15  a  month  by  this  system  at  the  end 
of  about  ten  years  has  his  house  clear,  but  if  he  pays  the  $15 
as  rent,  at  the  end  of  the  ten  years  the  landlord  has  the  rent 
and  the  house  too* 

To  carry  out  a  plan  like  this  it  is  necessary  at  first  that 
some  philanthropic  persons  in  whom  the  people  have  con- 


208         Sybaris  and  Other  Homes 

fidence  should,  like  Mr.  Davis,  be  willing  gratuitously  to 
devote  a  few  hours  every  month  to  the  management  of 
such  an  organization.  As  in  the  case  of  savings-banks, 
the  success  of  one  might  lead  to  results  in  the  highest 
degree  beneficial  both  to  the  public  and  individuals. 

JOSIAH  QUINCY. 


HOW  THEY  LIVED  IN  HAMPTON 


A   STUDY   IN    PRACTICAL 
CHRISTIANITY 


PREFACE  TO   NEW   EDITION 

1DO  not  know  that  the  principle  dwelt  upon 
in  "  Hampton  "  has  been  illustrated  in  detail 
in  any  of  the  other  books  on  co-operative  manu 
facture.  When  my  friend,  Mr.  George  Holyoake, 
republished  the  book  in  London,  he  did  me  the 
honor  to  say  that  it  was  the  most  satisfactory 
statement  which  he  had  seen  of  the  application 
to  manufacture  of  the  principles  of  co-operation. 
Mr.  Holyoake,  the  father  of  co-operative  trade,  is 
a  high  authority.  As  the  reader  will  see,  I  am 
not  entitled  to  the  credit  of  this  handsome  com 
pliment  ;  and  I  am  glad  to  place  that  credit 
where  it  belongs. 

As  I  believe,  the  emphasis  here  given  to  the 
importance  of  the  work  of  the  "  manufacturer," 
as  the  link  between  the  capitalist  on  the  one  side 
and  the  workman  on  the  other,  is  of  central  and 
essential  importance  in  all  such  undertakings.  I 
shall  therefore  state  here  in  some  detail  the  his 
tory  of  this  book.  It  was  first  published  in  1888. 

My  friend,  Mr.  William  Babcock  Weeden,  of 
Providence,  is  well  known  among  all  students  of 
American  history  by  his  valuable  book  on  "  The 
Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England." 


212      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

All  his  readers  do  not  know,  perhaps,  that  this  is 
the  same  Mr.  Weeden  who,  at  the  head  of  the 
Weybosset  and  other  woollen  mills,  has,  in  the 
last  generation,  clothed  millions  on  millions  of 
people  who  have  not  known  to  whom  they  were 
indebted.  He  is  so  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
principles  and  details  of  the  sciences  involved  in 
the  woollen  manufacture  that  in  such  matters  he 
is  one  of  the  first  authorities. 

Now,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  loose  talk  about 
what  is  called  "  co-operation."  In  mixed  circles, 
especially  in  circles  where  people  talk  about  sub 
jects  of  which  they  know  nothing,  there  is  a  con 
venient  habit  of  using  the  word  "  co-operation  "  as 
a  sort  of  spell.  Especially  when  there  is  friction 
between  capitalist  and  workmen,  as  between  the 
man  who  owns  the  land  and  the  man  who  guides 
the  plough,  it  is  very  convenient  to  say,  in  an 
oracular  way,  that  all  difficulties  must  be  settled 
by  co-operation.  Then  the  talk  drifts  off  either 
into  rhapsodies  as  to  the  cleanness  of  the  streets 
in  Paris,  or  into  guesses  as  to  the  fortunes  of  wheat, 
three  months  afterward. 

Mr.  Weeden,  as  an  intelligent  manufacturer, 
really  knew  what  were  the  possibilities  and  the 
impossibilities  in  such  matters.  He  took  the 
pains  to  state  them  in  a  vigorous  scientific  paper 
which  he  read  before  the  "  Examiner  Club "  of 
Boston  not  long  after  the  terrible  pecuniary  crisis 
of  1873-74.  He  pointed  out  in  it  the  various  ele 
ments  of  energy  and  of  intelligence  which  must 


Preface  to  New  Edition          2 1  3 

combine  in  the  manufacture  of  all  textile  articles. 
And  he  showed  what  I  may  call  the  absurdity  of 
supposing  that  because  a  man  knows  how  to  spin 
yarn  well,  he  should  know  how  to  place  a  bale  of 
flannel  on  the  New  York  market.  In  reading 
this  paper  before  the  "  Examiner  Club "  he  pre 
sented  to  a  thoughtful  and  intelligent  jury  his 
view  of  the  recognition  as  an  important  factor  of 
the  duty  of  the  "  enterpriser,"  or  "  undertaker." 

After  hearing  this  statement,  I  told  him  that 
it  ought  to  be  presented,  not  only  to  such  a 
circle  as  that,  but  to  the  "  general  public,"  to  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  I  said  that  this 
could  only  be  done  in  the  concrete,  —  I  suppose 
I  said  that  nothing  is  ever  really  taught  to  the 
average  man  which  has  not  been  presented  in 
the  concrete, —  as  well  as  in  abstract  or  theoreti 
cal  forms.  I  told  him  that  if  we  put  this  under 
the  eye  of  a  million  readers,  it  would  have  a  bet 
ter  chance  of  being  fairly  tested  than  if  we  left 
it  to  the  study  of  scientific  sociologists.  Mr. 
Weeden  was  not  displeased  at  the  suggestion ; 
and  when  I  offered  to  furnish  the  ink,  paper,  and 
pen  work,  and  to  work  out  the  drama,  so  to 
speak,  with  persons  who  should,  as  far  as  I  could 
make  them,  present  the  scheme  in  living  action 
before  those  who  would  read,  Mr.  Weeden  agreed 
to  contribute  the  details  of  the  working  plan,  — 
so  that  there  need  be  no  danger  that  in  the 
enthusiasm  of  authorship  I  should  overstate  or 
understate  any  possibilities  or  probabilities,  or 


214      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

expectations,  or  dangers.  I  therefore  dressed  up 
this  plan  of  co-operation,  not  between  two  par 
ties,  capitalist  and  workman,  but  between  three, 

—  capitalist,  "  enterpriser,"  and  workman,  —  in  a 
short  story  called 

BACK  TO   BACK. 

It  was  published  in  two  numbers  in  "  Harper's 
Magazine."  Here  it  met  its  million  readers. 
Messrs.  Harper  reprinted  it  at  once  in  their  Half- 
Hour  Series,  in  a  little  waistcoat  pocket  volume 
which  the  reader  can  command  now  if  he  will 
send  twenty-five  cents  to  that  firm,  in  Franklin 
Square,  New  York  City. 

We  had  no  reason  to  be  disappointed  in  the 
attention  it  received.  For  myself,  I  was  addressed 
at  once  by  three  different  owners  of  moribund 
woollen  mills,  who  offered  to  place  in  my  hands 
the  plant  of  these  establishments  if  I  would  organ 
ize  and  set  in  operation  "  Back  to  Back "  com 
panies,  where  capital,  enterprise,  and  industry 
should  thus  share  righteously  in  the  results.  Un 
fortunately  for  me,  —  shall  I  say  for  mankind? 

—  I   had    not   been   trained  to   the    methods    or 
processes    of   manufacture,   or   to   those    of    the 
wool  or   woollen  trade.     And   I   was   obliged    to 
decline  all  three  flattering  offers.     But,  as  I  need 
hardly  say,  I  have  taken  a  personal  interest  ever 
since  in   the    fortunes    of  the  mills  which   might 
have  been  mine. 

I  have  had  reason  to  think,  however,  that  Mr. 


Preface  to  New  Edition          215 

Weeden's  sensible  and  practical  suggestions  were 
not  without  their  effect  among  the  men  who  own 
textile  mills,  and  those  who  worked  in  them. 
My  friend,  Mr.  George  A.  Chase,  now  for  many 
years  at  the  head  of  the  Bourne  Mill  near  Fall 
River,  has  shown  to  the  world  from  year  to  year 
the  advantages  which  have  been  derived  there 
from  the  system  of  co-operative  work  as  far  as 
they  have  adopted  it,  and  the  confidence  he  has 
in  the  system  has  encouraged  me  in  attempting 
to  explain  it  in  more  detail  in  the  description  of 
life  in  the  imagined  village  of  Hampton. 

Mr.  Nelson,  the  energetic  and  accomplished  chief 
of  the  co-operative  works  at  Le  Claire  in  Illinois, 
is  kind  enough  to  send  me  from  time  to  time  the 
accounts  of  the  triumphs  won  in  that  Arcadia. 

The  common  remark  of  persons  interested  in 
social  science  is  that  co-operation  in  trade  has 
succeeded  in  England,  that  co-operation  in  bank 
ing  has  succeeded  in  Germany,  that  co-operation 
for  the  building  of  homes  has  succeeded  in  Amer 
ica,  but  that  there  has  been  no  successful  en 
terprise  on  a  large  scale  where  a  large  number 
of  persons  have  united  together  in  the  interest 
of  manufacture,  or  any  such  system  of  sharing  in 
the  risk  and  sharing  in  the  profits  of  the  adven 
ture,  —  as  risk  and  profit  are  shared,  say,  in  the 
whale  fishery  or  mackerel  fishery  of  America, 
or  in  the  Rochdale  co-operation  of  buying  and 
selling.  This  familiar  remark  is  referred  to  by 
one  of  the  characters  in  this  book. 


216     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

It  is  to  be  taken  with  a  good  deal  of  allowance, 
like  most  such  remarks.  Such  enterprises  as 
those  of  Guise  in  France,  and  of  the  great  gas 
company  in  Manchester,  England,  as  the  Bourne 
Mill  in  Fall  River  and  of  Le  Claire  in  Illinois, 
are  very  considerable  exceptions,  well  worth  care 
ful  study.  These  are  all  on  a  large  scale.  On 
what  would  be  called  a  small  scale,  —  that  is, 
where  the  co-operators  are  not  more  than  eight 
or  ten  in  number,  —  there  are  literally  thousands 
in  our  manufacturing  States, 

The  phrase  "  Corporation  is  co-operation "  is 
true ;  and  to  a  very  large  extent  —  an  extent 
much  larger  indeed  than  the  average  talker  knows 
—  it  makes  of  the  American  working  man  a  capi 
talist,  and  allies  the  capitalist  to  the  workman. 

To  recur  to  the  history  of  the  inception  of 
"  Hampton,"  the  plan  of  co-operation  here  brought 
forward  had  all  been  made  public  as  early  as  1877 
in  "  Back  to  Back."  For  that  little  book,  as 
I  have  said,  Mr.  Weeden  had  himself  furnished  all 
of  what  I  may  call  the  working  machinery.  The 
figures  which  show  what  was  proposed  and  what 
was  achieved  are  all  his;  and  the  definite  state 
ments  of  the  agreements  which  bound  the  parties 
together.  For  ten  years  after  the  publication  of 
that  book,  I  had  occasion,  as  I  have  intimated,  to 
know  that  other  people  besides  ourselves  were  in 
terested  in  such  figures,  plans,  and  agreements. 

In  the  year  1887,  there  was  what  seemed  to  me 
another  opportunity  for  presenting  them  formally 


Preface  to  New  Edition          217 

to  the  People  of  America.  The  Sunday  School 
Union  offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  on  capital 
and  labor.  I  believed,  as  I  still  believe,  that 
the  plans  worked  out  in  Max  Rising's  flannel  mill 
at  Pigotsville  would  do  good  service  even  on  a 
larger  scale,  "  for  other  parts  of  America,"  as 
Thomas's  Almanac  says.  I  may  say  in  passing 
that  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  the  imagined 
Pigotsville  are  nearly  those  of  my  own  summer 
home  in  Rhode  Island  already  known  to  this  reader. 
With  careful  conference  again  with  Mr.  Weeden, 
who  gave  his  cordial  interest  to  the  preparation  of 
the  new  book,  I  wrote  in  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1887,  "  How  They  Lived  in  Hampton."  I  was 
able  to  introduce  into  it  some  of  my  own  theories 
and  practices  as  to  libraries,  churches,  banks,  and 
saving  institutions,  as  the  reader  will  see.  We 
put  the  book  on  typewriter  and  sent  it  to  the 
Philadelphia  competition. 

No,  it  did  not  receive  the  prize.  This  was 
awarded  to  a  gentleman  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

I  have  never  been  surprised,  and  have  never 
been  sorry.  To  say  the  truth,  the  book  is  only 
likely  to  interest  those  who  are  interested  in  that 
sort  of  thing,  —  to  borrow  Abram  Lincoln's  in 
imitable  phrase.  And  I  had  and  have  no  idea 
that  any  committee  of  clergymen  —  even  though, 
like  the  judges  in  this  competition,  they  be  much 
above  the  average  of  their  profession  —  care  much 
about  the  manufacture  of  flannel,  or  dare  much  to 
give  an  opinion  about  it.  So  we  soon  had  the 


2i 8      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

manuscript  on  our  hands  again.  What  was  well 
was,  that  it  had  got  itself  written.  And  this  would 
not  have  happened  but  for  the  happy  providence 
of  the  competition. 

My  friend,  Mr.  Stilman  Smith,  at  that  time  the 
publisher  of  the  magazine,  "  Lend  a  Hand,"  brought 
out  the  book  at  once,  and  we  cast  it  in  the  face 
of  a  rather  indifferent  world.  Then  an  interesting 
thing  happened.  As  the  ministers  had  been  afraid 
of  it  (in  my  guess)  because  they  did  not  know 
about  woollens,  now  the  literary  critics  were 
afraid  of  it  because  they  feared  it  contained  dyna 
mite,  anarchy,  and  other  elements  prejudicial  to 
the  civilization  of  the  century,  and  to  Philistine 
order  in  general.  I  do  not  think  that  any  journal 
in  America  took  pains  to  give  any  account  of  its 
contents  to  anybody.  It  might  conceal  socialism, 
anarchy,  as  I  said,  and  a  general  destruction  of 
mankind,  including  the  counting-room  of  the 
"  Thunderer  "  or  the  "  Busy-Body." 

To  a  young  author  this  would  have  seemed  dis 
couraging.  But  to  an  old  fox  like  me,  —  to  one 
who  had  written  "  book  notices "  in  his  day, 
and  who  knew  how  badly  they  were  written,  —  No. 
"The  people  who  like  that  sort  of  thing"  find 
out.  There  would  come  a  letter  from  a  back 
county  in  Kentucky,  enclosing  its  modest  post- 
stamps  or  money  order.  There  would  be  some 
workman  in  Cincinnati  who  had  seen  another 
workman's  copy  in  a  smoking-car.  And  so  from 
week  to  week  the  little  book  has  advertised  itself 


Preface  to  New  Edition          2 1 9 

without   much  help,  and   certainly   with   no   hin 
drance,  from  the  critics. 

I  have  a  right,  I  believe,  to  speak  with  a  certain 
confidence,  after  these  experiences  of  forty  years, 
as  to  the  American  wish  or  determination  in 
the  management  of  such  affairs.  As  is  intimated 
in  the  essay  in  the  eighth  volume  of  this  series  on 
the  Nationalism  of  New  England,  it  is  pity  of 
pities  that  our  fathers  did  not  carry  on  their  first 
experiments  with  the  inventions  of  Hargreaves  — 
the  spinning-jenny  and  the  power  looms — by  the 
same  mutual  laws  of  co-operative  industry  with 
which  they  established  the  whale  fishery. 


It  is  but  right,  however,  to  note  the  dangers  of 
such  an  establishment  as  is  imagined  at  our  little 
"  Hampton."  First,  and  chiefly,  the  inhabitants 
of  such  a  village,  with  no  other  occupations  than 
these  here  suggested,  would  become  terribly  sick 
of  each  other  and  of  life.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
making  of  textile  fabrics  is  not  the  chief  end  of 
man.  My  friends,  Hon.  Hannibal  Manchester 
and  General  Asdrubal  Lanark,  think  it  is;  as  I 
believe  Adam  Smith  and  Robert  Owen  thought 
before  they  were  born.  But  all  four  of  them, 
happily,  are  mistaken;  and  happily  the  propor 
tion  of  spinners  and  weavers  grows  smaller  every 
day.  One  man  can  make  as  much  cotton  cloth 
to-day  as  three  men  could  forty  years  ago.  It 


220     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

is  as  foolish  to  discuss  social  order  as  if  the 
great  majority  of  the  world  were  mill  hands,  as 
it  is  to  discuss  it  as  another  generation  did,  as  if 
most  men  were  drudges,  —  clowns,  as  Shakespeare 
would  have  called  them,  —  or  the  riff-raff  of  Corio- 
lanus's  scorn. 

I  should  say,  then,  that  the  danger  of  such  an 
establishment  as  is  described  at  Hampton  is  the 
monotony  or  uniformity  of  the  life  there.  It  is  a 
pity  to  have  a  village  made  from  one  industry  and 
only  one. 

If  Mr.  Spinner  or  Mr.  Workman  could  import 
into  their  Arcadia  Mr.  Smith,  or  Mr.  Sole,  or  Mr. 
Upperleather,  or  Mr.  Pansy,  or  Mr.  Cabbage,  so 
as  to  vary  the  industries  of  the  place,  they  would 
make  a  much  more  attractive  Hampton. 

I  suppose  that  the  weak  spot  in  an  establishment 
so  well  intended  as  Pullman,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Chicago,  was  the  monotony.  I  suppose  that 
varying  industries  give  an  opportunity  for  the 
genius  or  native  make-up  of  each  child,  which  is 
quite  necessary  for  the  best  civilization. 

It  may  be  said  in  passing,  perhaps,  that  the 
chief  end  of  man  is  to  live  to  the  glory  of  God. 

EDWARD   E.   HALE. 

ROXBURY,/#tt£  26,  I9OO. 


PREFACE   TO   THE   EDITION   OF    1888 

THE  author  supposes  that  this  essay  on  the 
Christian  relations  of  the  capitalist  and  the 
workman  will  be  more  generally  read  if  it  is 
presented  in  narrative  form. 

It  is  proper  to  say  that  the  details  bearing  on 
the  business  of  manufacture  have  the  authority 
of  a  well-known  and  successful  manufacturer  of 
woollens. 

I  am  myself  the  person  who  was  invited,  in  1873, 
by  the  proprietors  of  three  different  woollen  mills,  to 
take  them  and  carry  them  on,  on  the  plan  proposed. 
I  received  these  invitations  because  I  had  blocked 
out  this  plan,  or  rather  a  manufacturer  of  large  ex 
perience  had  blocked  it  out  for  me,  in  a  story  which 
I  published  at  that  time  in  "  Harper's  Magazine  " 
called  "  Back  to  Back." 

Unfortunately  for  me,  I  was  not  trained  to  the 
woollen  manufacture,  and  could  not  take,  therefore, 
the  difficult  part  which  Mr.  Spinner  takes  in  this 
book,  as  Max  Rising  took  it  in  that.  I  was  there 
fore  obliged  to  decline  the  three  proposals.  But 
in  this  book,  as  the  reader  will  see,  I  have  supposed 
that  Mr.  Spinner  accepted  one. 

EDWARD  E.  HALE. 


HOW   THEY   LIVED   IN 
HAMPTON 

CHAPTER  I 

HOW  THEY  LIVED  IN  HAMPTON 

HAMPTON  was  a  little  factory  town  where 
was  one  woollen  mill,  which  represented 
an  investment  of  perhaps  sixty  thousand  dollars. 
The  village  was  pretty,  —  a  little  more  four-square 
and  set  in  its  plan  than  I  should  have  made  it,  — 
but  with  evident  arrangements  of  comfort  for  the 
workingmen  and  workingwomen.  Lines  of  maples, 
about  twenty  years  old,  or  rather  less,  shaded  the 
streets,  growing  perhaps  a  little  too  near  the  fronts 
of  the  houses.  The  houses  were  not  in  blocks. 
They  were  separate  from  each  other,  and  each 
house  had  the  command,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of  as 
much  as  an  acre  of  land,  as  a  home  garden.  I 
noticed,  as  I  walked  about  the  village  and  pushed 
my  explorations  into  the  back  streets,  that,  in 
many  instances,  the  lots  connected  with  back  lots, 
so  that  these  gardens  were  considerably  more  than 
an  acre.  The  mill  was  just  off  the  village  street, 
built  close  to  the  Beaver  Brook,  which  was  dammed 
up  to  make  the  waterfall  which  provided  power. 


224     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

A  church,  a  town  hall,  and  a  schoolhouse  faced 
three  sides  of  a  little  public  square,  which  was 
planted  with  trees  and  flowers,  in  the  midst  of 
which  there  was  a  fountain.  I  noticed  a  stand 
for  a  band  on  one  side  of  the  square. 

I  had  been  following  Beaver  Brook,  and  what 
the  geography  would  call  its  tributaries,  far  up 
into  the  woods  and  hills,  and  had  returned  to  a 
late  dinner,  with  a  basket  of  trout  quite  as  heavy 
as  I  cared  to  carry.  The  plan  had  been  that 
we  were  to  drive  down  the  valley  after  dinner, 
and  see  what  was  to  be  seen  of  a  certain  mound 
in  the  fork  of  the  river  and  brook,  which  either 
was  or  was  not  built  by  the  Aztecs,  or  by  Chip- 
pewas,  or  some  other  Indian  tribes,  and  regarding 
which  we  were  to  form  an  opinion  while  we  spent 
a  pleasant  afternoon.  But  the  appearance  in  the 
west  of  black  clouds,  which  made  a  thunder-storm 
certain,  broke  up  these  plans  for  a  drive,  and  so  I 
found  myself  sitting  with  Mr.  Spinner,  my  host,  on 
the  broad  eastern  piazza,  with  the  chance  for  a  long 
talk,  which  business,  amusement,  or  the  interrup 
tion  of  guests  had  not  permitted  during  my  visit. 

"  Now  you  can  tell  me,"  said  I,  "  how  you  came 
here,  what  you  did  first,  and  what  you  did  last, 
why  you  did  it,  and  where  you  did  it,  when  you 
failed,  and  when  you  succeeded." 

Spinner  laughed.  *'  I  am  not  a  story-teller," 
said  he,  "  and  I  shall  be  apt  to  put  the  cart  before 
the  horse.  The  story  will  fail  in  what  the  maga 
zines  call  artistic  or  aesthetic  grouping  or  arrange- 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     225 

ment.  But  if  you  put  me  on  my  hobby,  I  shall 
ride  him,  and  you  will  have  to  see  his  paces." 

I  said  I  wanted  nothing  better. 

"  I  like  to  tell  the  story,"  he  said.  "  I  have  seen 
it  all,  —  I  and  Nancy  here,  —  and  we  have  been  a 
good  deal  of  it.  But  we  should  not  have  done 
what  we  have,  nor  would  you  see  what  you  see 
here,  but  for  the  loyal  help  of  the  people  here ;  no, 
nor  if,  on  the  whole,  the  country  had  not  been  be 
hind  us.  At  bottom,  John,  this  is  a  country  of 
workingmen.  The  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
rich  men  is  easily  seen  and  easily  talked  of.  But, 
for  all  that,  the  amount  in  the  pockets  of  the  People 
—  the  People  with  a  large  P,  as  that  man  said  in 
his  speech  —  is  vastly  more  than  the  amount  at  the 
bank  accounts  of  a  few  nabobs.  Indeed,  I  often 
think  of  that  phrase  of  Quincy's,  that  the  servant- 
girls  of  Boston  owned  the  palaces  on  their  Back 
Bay.  He  meant  that  the  servant-girls  made  the 
deposits  in  the  savings-banks,  which  enabled  them 
to  lend  to  the  palace-builders  all  the  money  they 
wanted. 

"  So  the  country  sympathizes  with  industry,  with 
contrivance,  with  work.  That  sympathy  shows  it 
self  in  law,  —  well  in  fashion,  though  the  news 
papers  do  not  think  so,  —  in  public  sentiment. 
And  this  makes,  Mr.  Freeman,  it  makes  no  end  of 
difference.  I  would  not  run  a  mill  in  Mexico, — 
not  if  you  would  give  me  forty-five  ingots  of  silver 
to  build  into  the  foundation.  Nay ;  when  I  re 
member  how  I  heard  a  Manchester  woman  from 

15 


226     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

England  once,  in  a  New  Hampshire  valley,  hold 
up  her  hands  to  heaven  and  invoke  its  '  curse  on 
them  that  built  the  chimbleys  which  shut  out  God's 
light,'  from  her  old  home,  in  the  England  she  had 
deserted ;  when  I  heard  that,  I  was  glad  I  was  not 
making  cloth  in  England.  I  like  to  work  where  I 
have  *  the  country  behind  me/  " 

Then  Spinner  asked  me  if  I  remembered  where 
we  had  heard  that  phrase.  I  did  remember  it  very 
well.  Captain  Greely  had  given  an  account,  in 
tensely  exciting,  of  his  Arctic  adventures.  And  he 
told  us  how  he  encouraged  the  men  by  telling 
them  that  they  had  "  the  country  behind  them." 

"  Well,"  said  Spinner/ as  he  picked  up  the  thread 
of  his  history,  and  as  little  Mary  Spinner  brought 
me  a  Bartlett  pear  and  a  fruit-knife,  "  to  begin  at 
the  beginning,  we  began  when  everything  was 
horribly  depressed.  I  suppose  that  is  a  good  time 
to  begin.  If  the  sand  and  gravel  has  been  swept 
off  the  rock,  you  have  a  clean  underpinning.  You 
can  build  on  the  rock,  and  no  mistake,  and  for  that 
there  is  good  Scripture.  It  was  in  the  autumn  of 
1874.  I  had  been  the  foreman  in  the  dyeing-room 
—  head-dyer  I  was  called  —  in  the  Andalusia  Mills, 
at  Groton.  Perhaps  you  remember  how  high  up 
they  went,"  he  said,  rather  grimly,  "  higher  than 
a  kite.  The  selling  agent  knew  as  much  about 
wool  as  I  know  about  quarternions.  He  chose  to 
buy  our  wool,  as  well  as  to  sell  our  goods.  He 
left  the  business  mostly  to  his  sons,  who  knew  more 
of  billiards  than  I  know  of  teazles.  And  the  up- 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     227 

shot  of  it  all  was  that  there  was  that  first-rate 
smash-up.  Stockholders  and  all  were  mad.  An 
dalusia  Mills  were  sold  under  the  hammer  to  some 
Germans,  and  they  brought  in  their  own  people  to 
run  them,  if  and  when  they  opened  again.  So  I 
and  Nancy  here,  with  our  two  babies,  were  left  out 
in  the  cold. 

"  Meanwhile  the  country  was  drugged  or  flooded, 
or  whatever  you  call  it,  with  every  sort  of  woollen 
goods.  And  it  did  seem  as  if  the  man  was  a  fool 
who  made  any  more. 

"  Just  at  that  time  I  met  at  some  sort  of  a  com 
mittee  meeting  our  old  friend  Thankful  Nourse ; 
we  were  both  trustees  of  a  workingman's  building 
fund.  I  walked  home  with  Nourse,  and,  well,  yes, 
I  told  him  a  few  bottom  truths  on  the  subject  of 
investment.  He  had  been  in  the  Andalusia,  and 
now  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  same  stock 
quoted  at  '35,  no  buyers/  for  which  his  father  had 
given  two  or  three  hundred  a  share. 

"  I  told  Nourse  that  it  was  just  what  the  Scripture 
said.  He  had  had  his  good  things,  and  now  he 
had  his  evil  things.  I  told  him  that  if  he  had 
known  how  to  manufacture  woollens,  and  had 
chosen  to  use  his  knowledge,  he  would  have  saved 
much  of  his  investment. 

"  '  Instead  of  which/  I  said,  '  you  chose  to  go  to 
the  Islands  of  Greece,  and  up  the  Nile,  and  across 
the  desert  to  Damascus,  and  you  left  the  business 
of  manufacturing  to  some  people  who  knew  nothing 
about  it.'  Nourse  answered,  rather  grimly  and 


228      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

gloomily,  that  he  knew  that  very  well,  quite  as 
well  as  I  did,  and  that  he  did  not  come  to  have  his 
memory  refreshed. 

" '  No/  I  said,  *  I  did  not  mean  to  annoy  you. 
But  I  meant  to  say  this,  that  there  are  two  different 
rates  by  which  capital  ought  to  be  paid.  One  is 
the  rate  by  which  I  am  paid  for  my  money  when  I 
do  not  take  care  of  it,  and  take  no  risks.  This  is  a 
much  lower  rate  than  the  rate  to  be  paid  me  when 
I  take  care  of  it  myself,  and  when  I  do  take  some 
risk.' 

"  *  Of  course,'  Nourse  says ;  '  every  one  agrees  to 
that.' 

"  Yes,  every  one  agrees  to  that.  But  I  have 
not  found  that  all  people  agree  to  what  follows. 
Yet  I  think  it  is  clear.  It  is  not  very  hard,  in  any 
country,  to  find  out  about  what  capital  is  worth, 
say,  for  idiots  or  fools  of  any  sort,  or  for  people 
who  do  not  want  to  take  care  of  their  money,  if 
they  knew  how.  It  is  clear  enough  that  the  long 
government  loans,  such  loans  as  the  English  con 
sols,  represent  the  minimum  rate  of  interest  An 
idiot  or  his  guardian  would  be  sure  of  his  interest. 
He  takes  no  care  of  the  investment,  but  his  invest 
ment  is  sure.  And  I  went  on  to  say  that  while 
Nourse  was  going  up  the  Nile,  or  was  crossing  the 
desert,  or  even  if  he  had  a  paralytic  stroke  which 
lasted  seventeen  years,  the  Andalusia  people  ought 
to  have  paid  him  at  that  rate  of  interest,  and 
that  he  had,  indeed,  in  equity,  an  absolute  right 
to  it. 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton      229 

"  Nourse  began  to  see  what  I  was  driving  at ; 
and  he  said  that  if  that  were  all  capitalists  were  to 
have,  nobody  would  ever  bother  to  use  money  for 
manufacturing.  They  would  try  government 
bonds  and  be  done  with  it.  '  And  you  fellows,' 
said  he,  '  who  are  now  very  willing  to  take  our 
subscriptions  to  your  stock,  would  find  there  was 
no  money  to  build  the  mills  with,  or  to  buy  the 
first  bale  of  wool.' 

"  I  said  I  knew  that;  and  that  I  did  not  mean 
to  limit  them  to  that.  But  I  said,  that  for  what 
followed  this  minimum  rate,  they  became,  to  a 
certain  extent,  adventurers.  What  followed  was 
something  like  a  second-mortgage  bond,  —  not  so 
sure  in  its  essence  as  the  first.  '  You  are  entitled,' 
I  said,  '  to  what  we  will  call  the  Idiot  Rate,  — the 
average  rate  of  "  Governments,"  —  though  the  sky 
should  fall,  in  bad  times  or  good  times.  But  for 
after  profit,  you  must  take  the  chances,  just  as  the 
retailer  does,  who  sells  you  satinets  and  broad 
cloths,  —  or  just  as  the  tailor  does,  who  has  pieces 
of  them  on  his  shelves,  and  cannot  sell  them. 
When  the  Andalusia  people  paid  you  that  swamp 
ing  dividend  of  eleven  per  cent,  six  or  eight  years 
ago,  three  per  cent  or  a  little  more  came  to  you 
because  it  was  the  worth  of  the  money,  and  nearly 
eight  per  cent  came  to  you  because  that  was  a 
good  year,  and  because  then  you  had  some  intelli 
gent  people  at  the  fore/ 

"  Nourse  growled  that  it  was  long  since  he  had 
had  any  such  good  fortune,  —  that  he  was  a  fool 


230     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

not  to  sell  out  then,  and  that  he  never,  he  hoped, 
should  be  such  a  fool  again. 

"  But  I  went  to  see  him  the  next  day,  and  we 
followed  up  the  conversation.  I  told  him,  that 
even  in  the  depressed  condition  of  affairs  which  we 
were  in,  there  were  as  good  chances  as  ever  for 
going  into  the  business  of  making  woollen  cloths. 
I  said  that  I  did  not  believe  that  wearing  warm 
clothes  in  winter  was  going  out  of  fashion. 

"  Nourse  said  that  the  tariff  might  change,  and 
England  and  Germany  might  undersell  us.  He 
had  burned  his  fingers  once,  and  he  would  not 
burn  them  again,  —  and  so  on  and  so  on. 

"  As  for  tariffs,  I  said  that  the  country  would 
long  want  a  large  revenue,  and  was  used  to  gather 
ing  it  by  import  duties.  I  said  that  the  country 
was  really  governed  by  its  workingmen,  and  that 
they  would  be  slow  to  injure  themselves.  And  I 
said  that  whether  there  was  a  high  tariff  or  not,  we 
are  an  ingenious  people,  and  a  numerous  people; 
that  the  nearer  the  mill  was  to  the  shop  on  the  one 
side,  and  to  the  man  who  made  the  coat  on  the 
other,  the  better  was  the  chance  of  the  man  who 
carried  on  the  mill.  Anyway,  I  said,  I  had  been 
educated  to  make  woollen  cloth,  that  was  my  pro 
fession,  and  I  did  not  expect  to  give  it  up;  that 
there  were  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Americans  as 
good  as  I,  who  had  been  trained  to  that  profession, 
and  that  we  had  somewhere  between  forty  and  fifty 
million  people  about  us  who  were  glad  to  wear  the 
cloth  we  had  made.  He  laughed  good-naturedly, 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     231 

and  said  he  was  glad  I  was  in  such  good  heart. 
And  I  reminded  him,  that  however  much  he  had 
suffered  by  the  Andalusia,  I  had  suffered  more. 

"But,  indeed,  those  were  black  times  in  our 
business.  Oh !  I  cannot  tell  you  how  many  mills 
shut  down,  —  all  the  weak  ones, — most  of  the 
little  ones,  —  and  indeed  a  good  many  which  no 
one  would  ever  have  called  weak  until  then.  It 
happened  that  I  wrote  an  article  about  manufactur 
ing,  in  a  weekly  paper,  which  attracted  the  atten 
tion  of  some  business  men,  and  from  that  article  it 
was  that  I  received,  through  the  editor's  hands, 
three  letters,  from  three  different  sets  of  people, 
asking  me  if  I  did  not  want  to  bring  to  life  three 
different  broken-winded  woollen  mills,  in  three  dif 
ferent  parts  of  the  country.  One  of  them  was  in 
Ohio ;  one  of  them  was  in  Middlesex,  in  Massa 
chusetts  ;  and  the  third  was  a  mill  here  in  Hamp 
ton.  I  do  not  say  it  was  this  mill,  though  here  is 
the  old  sluice-way,  the  old  wheel  in  fact,  and  in 
part  the  old  foundation.  But,  really,  we  have 
changed  almost  everything,  and  the  village,  as  you 
see  it,  is  practically  new. 

"  If  I  do  not  tire  you,  or  bore  you,  I  will  tell 
you  how  it  came  about." 

I  said  it  would  not  bore  me  at  all ;  that,  in  fact, 
I  had  come  to  Hampton  to  find  out,  if  I  could,  the 
secret  of  their  success,  and  that  the  more  he  liked 
to  tell  me,  the  better  I  should  be  pleased.  So 
Spinner  began  again. 

"  I  do  not  pretend  that  I  should  have  launched 


232      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

out  into  this  if  the  Andalusia  had  held  on.  I 
had  a  good  salary  there,  and  it  was  very  con 
venient  and  very  pleasant  to  draw  my  pay  with 
the  rest,  to  salt  down  what  I  wanted,  and  to  let 
a  strong  company  behind  me  take  all  the  risks  of 
the  business.  I  have  never  wondered  that  men 
are  so  eager  to  go  into  positions  where  they  have 
fixed  pay,  regularly  paid.  But  the  Andalusia  had 
not  held  on.  It  had  been  blown  up  '  higher  than 
a  kite.'  I  had  Nancy  and  the  babies  in  a  world 
which  was  full  of  Thankful  Nourses ;  I  mean,  full 
of  men  who  were  afraid  of  manufacturing,  —  that 
is,  were  afraid  of  the  very  enterprises  on  which  my 
bread  and  butter  and  my  babies'  milk  and  spoons 
depended.  That  was  really  the  reason  why,  when 
the  third  of  these  mills  was  offered  me,  I  began 
to  ask  myself  whether  I  had  not  better  face  the 
music ;  in  fact,  whether  I  must  not  face  the  music. 
The  Ohio  letter  I  had  answered  right  away,  with  a 
civil  refusal.  But  the  Middlesex  letter  and  this 
Hampton  letter  came  together,  by  one  mail.  That 
interested  me,  and  made  me  think  something 
might  be  done,  and  I  sent  for  John  Workman,  and 
asked  him  to  come  and  see  me. 

"  No.  He  is  not  one  of  the  Worcester  Work- 
mans.  That  is  another  family.  His  father  came 
from  Maine,  and  afterwards  went  to  Wisconsin. 

"  I  sent  for  John  Workman,  and  he  came  to  me. 
He  was  out  of  work,  as  I  knew  he  was,  and  I  knew 
that  he  would  know  some  of  the  best  hands  we 
had  had  at  the  Andalusia.  The  depression  of  all 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton      233 

business  was  as  hard  for  them  as  it  was  for  the 
manufacturers.  Well,  I  had  much  the  same  talk 
with  him  that  I  had  had  with  Mr.  Nourse,  only 
now  I  began,  so  to  speak,  at  the  other  end.  But 
I  told  Workman  that  he  and  I  had  our  chance 
now.  We  had  often  said  that  the  rate  of  wages 
ought  to  rise  with  good  times,  if  it  was  to  fall  with 
bad  times.  But  I  had  three  mills  offered  to  me 
to  carry  on,  and  thought  I  was  not  without  hopes 
that  I  could  persuade  Nourse  to  give  some  sinews 
of  war.  So  I  said  to  Workman  that  if  he  could 
get  a  lot  of  men  together  who  were  willing  to  work 
at  minimum  wages,  but  to  be  so  far  partners  in  the 
concern  that  if  times  improved  their  wages  should 
improve,  we  had  our  chance.  I  told  him  that  the 
'  bloated  capitalists '  were,  for  once,  as  badly  off 
as  the  men  who  worked  with  their  brains  and  with 
their  hands,  and  that  for  once  we  had  a  chance  to 
begin  in  our  own  way. 

"  Now,  as  I  said  before,  in  ordinary  times,  and 
especially  in  prosperous  times,  this  would  have 
been  mere  talk,  and  nothing  more.  But  Workman 
had  nothing  to  do,  and  he  had  a  family  to  feed. 
He  knew  several  of  our  best  friends,  as  I  have 
said ;  and  they  had  nothing  to  do,  and  they  had 
their  families  to  feed.  He  brought  two  or  three 
of  them  to  me,  and  we  had  long  conversations 
It  ended  in  my  getting  more  promises  from  them, 
which  I  was  able  to  carry  to  Mr.  Nourse.  They 
were  willing  to  take  hold  with  me ;  I  did  not  say 
on  shares  exactly,  but  really  it  was  much  the  same 


234     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

way  that  the  fishermen,  or  in  old  days  the  whalers 
at  Nantucket,  go,  or  went,  for  their  enterprises. 
That  is  to  say,  everybody  there  was  to  be  sure  of 
his  rations  as  far  as  anything  could  be  sure;  but 
for  the  rest,  it  all  depended  upon  whether  our  voy 
age  were  a  good  one  or  not.  The  men  wanted  to 
divide  every  three  months,  but  I  would  not  agree 
to  this.  I  said  the  voyage  must  last  two  years 
before  there  was  a  division.  They  were  rather  a 
superior  class  of  men,  —  they  were  interested  in 
the  plan.  They  were  all  running  behindhand,  and 
drawing  on  their  bank  accounts ;  and  they  finally 
agreed  that  our  voyage  should  be  a  two  years' 
voyage  before  we  made  any  dividend.  That  is  to 
say,  they  agreed  to  just  what  Nourse  agreed  to. 
All  that  was  to  be  absolutely  promised  was  a  '  star 
vation  payment/  and  the  rest  was  to  be  part  of 
the  venture. 

"  Let  me  say,  by  the  way,  that  in  any  such  enter 
prise  you  are  able  to  rely  on  the  love  of  adventure 
which  exists  in  all  men's  hearts.  Why,  Freeman, 
if  you  thought  it  was  right,  you  would  like  to  buy 
a  lottery  ticket  yourself  to-day,  and  you  are  really 
sorry  that  you  know  it  is  wrong. 

"  As  for  me,  I  was  between  the  two,  with  Work 
man.  We  two  were  a  sort  of  buffers,  to  take  all 
the  pounding.  We  were  to  be  scolded  by  both  sides, 
and  have  all  the  responsibility  of  everybody's  fail 
ures.  We  were  to  be  responsible  with  the  present 
owners  of  the  mill,  whichever  way  we  should  take. 
We  were  to  make  the  engagement  with  Nourse, 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     235 

and  the  engagements  with  the  men.  When  we 
were  fairly  running,  if  ever  we  were  fairly  running, 
I  was  to  buy  the  wool,  and  I  was  to  sell  the  cloth. 
I  was  to  make  the  journeys  to  New  York,  and  I 
was  to  have  money  enough  in  the  strong-box 
every  Saturday  night  to  pay  the  starvation  wages 
we  had  agreed  upon,  and  at  the  end  of  every  third 
month  to  pay  Nourse  the  *  idiot  dividend '  on  his 
capital.  Workman  was  to  take  the  personal  over 
sight  of  the  manufacture,  to  turn  the  raw  wool  into 
woollen.  That  is  to  say,  we  were  to  be  these 
hated  middle-men  whom  we  had  abused  so  often, 
and  whom  we  had  heard  cursed  so  often.  I  did 
not  much  like  to  be  a  middle-man;  but  it  was 
very  clear  that  Nourse  did  not  mean  to  run  this 
mill,  but  was  going  off  to  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
And  the  people  who  owned  it  did  not  mean  to 
run  it.  If  they  had  meant  to,  they  would  not 
have  offered  it  to  me. 

"  I  showed  the  men's  agreement  to  Nourse,  and 
I  got  a  half-way  promise  from  him  that  if  I  started 
such  a  plan  he  might  put  in  some  money.  How 
much  he  would  put  in,  I  did  not  know.  But  on 
the  strength  of  his  promise  I  drew  fifty  dollars  out 
of  my  bank  account,  and  took  Workman  with  me, 
and  we  came  down  to  see  this  place.  I  can  tell 
you  that  it  did  not  look  much  as  it  does  now.  It 
had  been  badly  planned,  badly  managed,  and  had 
come  to  grief.  A  poor  broken-winded  mill  at  the 
best;  and  when  we  saw  it,  it  had  no  wind  at  all. 
The  people  had  all  gone  away  except  an  old  man 


236      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

who  was  keeper,  and  who  had  his  machinery,  such 
as  it  was,  clean  and  in  good  order.  But  it  would 
evidently  take  a  good  deal  of  money,  and  I  no 
longer  wondered  that  the  people  had  written  to 
me  to  offer  it  to  me. 

"  If  you  care  anything  about  it,  I  will  show  you 
to-morrow  the  papers  that  passed  between  me  and 
them,  and  I  should  like  to  show  you  some  photo 
graphs  which  show  what  it  was  when  we  took 
hold. 

"But,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  for  Nancy 
wants  us  at  tea,  it  ended  in  my  persuading  Nourse 
to  buy  the  whole  concern,  and  for  the  present  to 
hold  the  deed.  But  he  took  me  as  partner,  and 
John  Workman  as  another  partner ;  and  we  drew 
out  our  bank  accounts,  —  I  had  nearly  two  thou 
sand  dollars  then,  and  Workman  had  five  or  six 
hundred,  —  so  that  we  might  be  in  good  faith  part 
ners  with  him  in  co-operation.  And  it  was  agreed 
that  any  man  who  worked  in  the  mill  three  months 
might  become  a  stockholder  with  us.  Indeed, 
Nourse  agreed  to  sell  out  all  his  stock  if  we  chose. 
We  were  to  allow  him  four  per  cent  a  year,  as  what 
we  all  called  in  joke  the  '  idiot's  dividend,'  which 
was  to  be  paid  as  our  first  charge  after  we  had 
paid  what  we  called  '  starvation  wages '  and  our 
other  running  expenses. 

"  For  the  rest,  I  was  to  be  permitted,  for  my 
salary  as  manager,  to  draw  six  hundred  dollars  a 
year,  as  the  men  drew  their  wages.  Workman 
was  to  draw  the  same.  After  the  end  of  the 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton      237 

second  year  we  were  to  see  where  we  were.  That 
is  to  say,  the  first  voyage  should  then  be  considered 
over.  Profits,  for  we  took  it  for  granted  there 
would  be  profits,  were  then  to  be  divided  into 
three  equal  parts.  Nourse  was  to  have  one  third ; 
Workman  and  I,  as  managers,  were  to  have  one 
third ;  and  the  men  were  to  have  one  third.  Of 
course,  as  fast  as  they  bought  out  Nourse's  stock, 
they  also  became  capitalists,  and  took  their  earn 
ings  as  such.  The  scheme  would  work,  however, 
if  none  of  them  took  any  of  his  share. 

"  However,  you  had  better  see  all  this  on  paper, 
and  I  will  show  you  the  articles  of  agreement  after 
Nancy  has  given  you  a  cup  of  tea. 

"  When  the  papers  were  finally  passed  I  had 
Workman  with  me,  and  he  brought  with  him  one 
of  the  best  of  the  men  who  had  agreed  to  try  the 
new  plan  at  Hampton,  whose  name  was  Holmes. 
We  had  gone  all  over  the  business  pretty  carefully, 
and  I  thought  Mr.  Nourse  wanted  to  get  away. 
But  the  other  two  still  lingered,  and  finally  Holmes 
broke  the  silence,  and  said  :  — 

"  '  I  wanted  to  say  to  you,  Mr.  Nourse,  and  I 
think  Mr.  Spinner  would  like  to  say  the  same 
thing,  that  we  are  not  going  into  this  thing  as 
a  mere  matter  of  business.  It  is  a  matter  of  busi 
ness,  and  we  will  hold  to  our  promise  as  men  of 
business.  But  we  like  the  plan  really,  and  we  like 
it  because  it  seems  to  us  to  be  fair  all  round. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  bad  talk  —  you  must 
excuse  me  if  I  say  I  think  it  is  on  all  sides — about 


238      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

the  relations  of  what  people  call  labor  and  capital. 
For  myself,  I  never  called  myself  a  laborer ;  I  always 
called  myself  a  workman,  and  I  think  there  is  a 
difference  between  work  and  labor.  But  that  is 
neither  here  nor  there.  I,  for  one,  do  not  want  to 
encourage  hard  language  between  men  like  you, 
Mr.  Nourse,  who  have  money,  and  men  like  me, 
who  want  to  do  an  honest  day's  work,  who  expect 
to  be  paid  for  it,  but  who  do  not  expect  anything 
more  than  our  pay.  I  should  think  that,  if  you 
will  let  me  say  so,  was  the  Christian  way  of  stating 
this  thing,  and  though  I  do  not  make  much  pre 
tence  as  a  religious  man,  I  am  a  member  of  the 
church,  and  I  do  want  to  go  forward  in  my  every 
day  work,  as  I  do  in  what  I  say  on  Sunday,  on 
Christian  principles.  Now,  if  you  do  not  think  I 
am  talking  too  long,  —  and  my  wife  often  tells  me 
that  I  do  talk  too  much,  —  I  should  like  to  explain 
what  I  mean  by  Christian  principle.' 

"  Mr.  Nourse  said,  with  a  great  deal  of  feeling, 
that  he  was  very  much  obliged  to  him ;  that  he 
would  stay  all  night  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 
For  he  said  he  had  made  this  thing  a  matter 
of  prayer  himself,  and  he  wanted  to  know,  if  he 
could,  what  were  the  Christian  relations  which 
bound  him  to  the  men  at  work  in  the  establish 
ments  where  he  had  any  interest.  He  said,  very 
earnestly,  that  anybody  was  unjust  to  him  who 
said  he  merely  wanted  to  screw  out  of  his  money 
the  most  that  could  be  got  for  it;  that  he  had  read 
and  talked  and  studied,  in  hope  of  finding  out  what 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     239 

these  same  Christian  relations  were.  He  would  be 
very  much  obliged  to  Mr.  Holmes  if  he  would 
take  all  the  time  he  wanted  to  state  his  view 
about  it. 

"  Holmes  seemed  somewhat  encouraged  by  this 
declaration*  but  he  said,  with  a  half  laugh,  that  we 
should  not  want  to  stay  till  midnight.  *  Indeed,  it 
is  all  in  very  short  language  in  the  New  Testament, 
where  it  says  we  must  bear  each  other's  burdens. 
It  says  that  no  man  is  to  live  for  himself  alone, 
and  no  man  is  to  die  for  himself  alone.  For  my 
part,  I  do  not  think  I  should  work  a  day  if  I  were 
not  pleased  with  the  thought  that  I  was  doing  my 
share  to  clothe  a  man  who  cannot  clothe  himself 
as  well  as  I  can  clothe  him,  —  some  poor  fellow 
off  in  Dakota  or  catching  whales  in  the  Arctic 
seas,  maybe,'  he  said,  laughing.  '  I  want  to  do 
my  share  in  the  work  of  this  world.  It  happens 
that  I  have  been  trained  to  do  this  as  a  weaver. 
I  call  myself  a  good  weaver,  and  I  think  I  am  able 
to  teach  other  people  something  about  weaving. 
If  I  did  not  think  so,  I  should  go  about  something 
else;  I  would  not  come  with  Workman  to  this 
mill.  But  I  want  to  do  this  as  a  disciple  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  a  child  of  God.  I  want  to  do  it  in  such 
a  way  that  I  shall  not  be  ashamed  of  doing  it  when 
I  come  to  die. 

" '  Now,  Mr.  Nourse  and  Mr.  Spinner  both,'  he 
said,  '  this  plan  of  yours  is  somewhat  new  in  the 
way  in  which  you  have  set  it  up.  It  really  implies, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  all  that  I  have  ever  contended 


240     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

for  when  I  have  made  speeches,  as  I  have  often 
done,  in  our  trade-union  meetings.  If  you  will  let 
me  say  so,  this  plan,  as  Mr.  Spinner  has  drawn  it 
up,  throws  our  business  of  manufacturing  on  very 
much  the  same  ground  on  which  most  business  is 
done  in  America.  Men  are  used  to  such  a  union 
as  I  make,  and  as  Workman  makes,  with  Mr. 
Spinner  and  anybody  he  has  with  him  to  carry 
on  this  mill.  Men  know  perfectly  well  that  there 
must  be  a  director  or  manager;  there  must  be 
somebody  to  make  plans  and  somebody  to  carry 
out  plans ;  and  we  are  not  such  fools  as  to  suppose 
that  that  somebody  is  to  work  without  being  paid 
for  it.  I  am  not  such  a  fool  as  to  suppose  that  he 
will  know  how  to  do  his  work  without  learning 
how.  We  are  not,  therefore,  jealous  at  all  of  the 
man  who  directs  our  industry,  who  manages  the 
concern,  who  says  what  is  profitable  and  what  is 
not  profitable,  and  who  buys  and  sells  our  goods. 
If  you  will  think  of  it,  that  is  exactly  what  is  done 
in  every  wholesale  store  or  retail  shop.  There  is 
a  man  who  buys  my  groceries,  for  instance ;  he 
knows  where  to  buy  them  and  how  to  buy  them 
cheaply,  and,  although  he  sells  them  to  me  for 
half  as  much  again  as  he  gave  for  them,  I  do  not 
quarrel  with  him.  It  is  a  convenience  for  me  to 
buy  a  pound  of  sugar  instead  of  buying  a  barrel 
of  sugar,  and  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the  man  who 
gives  me  that  convenience.  But,  behind  the  grocer, 
there  is  a  bank,  which  lends  him  money  and  pro 
vides  him  with  the  capital  which  he  is  going  to 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton      241 

use.  Now  here,  Mr.  Nourse,  I  am  not  sure  that 
you  would  agree  with  me,  but  I  am  telling  you  the 
average  opinion  of  American  workmen  about  the 
relationship  of  that  bank  to  that  grocer.  They 
say  that  the  bank  provides  him  with  capital  at 
certain  rates,  which  do  not  vary  very  much  from 
time  to  time.  There  was  once  a  time  when  they 
were  even  fixed  by  law  at  six  per  cent,  or  there 
abouts.  No  one  says  that  was  wise,  and  I  suppose 
it  was  not  wise.  Still,  this  is  certain :  those  rates 
do  not  go  up  and  down  in  exact  correspondence 
with  the  ups  and  downs  of  business.  When  my 
grocer  has  very  little  custom  he  does  not  find  that 
the  banks  lend  him  money  any  more  readily  because 
he  wants  it  more.  In  fact,  he  does  not  tell  the 
bank  very  accurately  what  the  state  of  his  business 
is ;  they  do  not  ask  him  very  carefully.  They  are 
careful  to  know  if  his  credit  is  good,  —  that  he 
does  not  press  them  too  hard,  —  and  if  he  is  safe 
they  lend  him  money. 

"  '  I  say  that  is  the  relationship  in  which  people 
are  in  the  habit  of  using  capital  in  America.  That 
is  exactly  the  relationship  which  you  have  estab 
lished  with  us  in  this  contract  you  have  made. 
Please  to  observe,  then,  that  it  is  the  arrangement 
which  we  are  used  to.  It  is  the  arrangement  which 
we  see  succeeds  in  other  forms  of  business.  That 
is  the  reason  why  we  like  it  better  than  an  arrange 
ment  in  which,  if  business  happened  to  be  very 
prosperous,  if  sales  were  very  quick,  and  our  goods 
particularly  in  demand,  the  capitalist  should  make 

16 


242     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

the  usual  profit  on  that  account,  while  our  wages 
would  rise  but  slowly,  if  they  rose  at  all. 

"  *  I  think  Mr.  Spinner  said  that  we  are  not 
above  liking  the  excitement  of  good  times,  and 
we  are  men  enough  to  take  the  pressure  of  bad 
times.  Here  is  the  reason  why  we  are  willing  to 
share  and  share. 

" '  Beyond  that,  I  should  like  to  assure  you,  Mr. 
Nourse,  who  seem  to  represent  capital  in  this  con 
versation,  and  you,  Mr.  Spinner,  who  seem  to  rep 
resent  skill  in  manufacturing  and  in  trade,  —  I 
should  like  to  assure  you  both  that  we  shall  like 
this  plan,  not  simply  because  we  think  we  are 
going  to  have  more  money  in  our  pockets  at  the 
end  of  two  years,  but  because  it  seems  to  us  exactly 
fair.  It  seems  to  us  that  now  we  bear  your  burdens, 
and,  if  you  will  let  me  say  so,  that  you  bear  ours. 
When  I  go  to  church,  I  am  apt  to  hear  a  good 
deal  of  this  talked  about.  And  I  find  that  I  am 
very  apt  to  get  thinking  that  this  is  the  practical 
side  of  the  Christian  religion ;  and  if  we  can  only 
succeed  here  on  our  part,  and  you  on  your  part, 
in  keeping  this  in  mind,  why,  we  shall  be  working 
out  the  Christian  relations  of  capital  to  workmen. 
It  will  not  be  a  great  while,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
before  we  cease  talking  about  your  part  and  our 
part,  and  shall  feel  that  we  are  all  engaged  in  one 
concern.  This  I  can  assure  you  of,  —  that  under 
such  a  plan  as  this,  you  are  certain  to  have  picked 
workmen  and  workwomen.  I  do  not  know  how 
much  you  have  thought  of  it,  but  it  is  a  great 


How  They  Lived  in  Hampton     243 

thing  to  have  a  contented  set  of  people.  It  is  not 
a  bad  thing  to  have  a  set  of  men  who  know  they 
are  trying  an  experiment,  and  I  can  promise  you 
that  while  there  is  any  hope  that  this  experiment 
will  succeed,  the  workmen,  whom  I  do  not  choose 
to  call  laborers,  will  meet  you  gentlemen  half  way, 
as  you  have  met  us.' " 

Such  were  Mr.  Holmes's  views  as  to  the  "  Chris 
tian  relations  between  capital  and  labor." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PLAN 

THE  arrangements  by  which  the  Hampton 
Mills  were  set  running  were,  indeed,  sub 
stantially  those  on  which  they  have  been  run  from 
that  day  to  this  day.  An  act  of  incorporation  was 
taken  out,  on  the  principle  of  limited  liability,  under 
the  general  corporation  law  of  that  State.  This  act 
originated,  as  all  similar  legislation  in  the  world 
originated,  in  the  act  framed  by  Mr.  Theodore 
Hinsdale  in  Connecticut,  in  the  year  1837.  It 
was  an  act  and  he  a  man  to  be  celebrated  and 
honored  by  all  who  believe  in  Christian  Co-opera 
tion,  and  think  that  the  law  should  sustain  and 
protect  all  who  wish  to  bear  each  other's  burdens. 
I  will  not  print  the  act  of  incorporation  here; 
for  I  shall  make  the  plan  more  intelligible  by  copy 
ing  the  original  agreement,  as  it  was  drawn  up  by 
Nourse,  Spinner,  and  Workman.  Eventually,  Spin 
ner  and  Workman  printed  this  agreement,  and  kept 
copies  of  it  in  the  office,  to  give  away  to  people 
like  me,  who  came  to  see  the  operation  of  the 
mills. 


The  Plan  245 

HAMPTON  WOOLLEN  MILL. 

Thankful  Nourse  of  Arcadia,  John  Workman  of  Hope- 
dale,  and  William  Spinner  of  Crastis  agree  to  form  a  cor 
poration  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  Hampton  Woollen 
Mills  in  the  town  of  Hampton.  This  agreement  is  to  last 
for  five  years,  and  afterwards,  until  one  of  these  three 
parties  expresses  a  wish  to  withdraw,  when  the  partner 
ship  shall  be  dissolved,  and  the  corporation,  at  the  end  of 
one  year's  notice  given  by  the  dissatisfied  partner. 

[In  fact,  neither  of  them  wished  to  withdraw  at  the  end 
of  five  years.  And  a  private  agreement  by  which  they 
were  bound  to  each  other  to  consent  to  such  withdrawal 
was,  at  the  end  of  five  years,  cancelled  by  the  three. 
Either  of  them  now  has  the  right  to  sell  his  stock,  and 
on  the  death  of  either  of  the  managing  partners,  the  sur 
viving  shareholders  would  choose  his  successor.] 

1.  Thankful  Nourse,  for  himself,  his  heirs,  and  repre 
sentatives,    agrees    to   furnish   as   required   seventy-two 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars  for  the  purchase  and  re 
pairs  of  the  property  known  as  the  Hampton  Mills,  and 
for  carrying  on  the  manufacture  of  woollen  cloth  under 
the   management   of  the   said   Workman   and    Spinner, 
already  named. 

2.  John  Workman,  of  the  second  part,  agrees  to  furnish 
five  hundred  dollars  for  the  same  purpose. 

3.  William  Spinner,  of  the  third  part,  agrees  to  furnish 
two  thousand  dollars  for  the  same  purpose. 

The  sum  of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  thus  con 
tributed  is  to  be  the  capital  stock  of  the  enterprise,  and 
when  capital  is  spoken  of  in  this  agreement,  the  sum  now 
named,  of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  is  meant 

John  Workman  and  William  Spinner,  of  the  second 


246     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

and  third  part  of  this  agreement,  agree  to  give  all  their 
time  and  skill  to  the  manufacture  of  woollen  goods  at  the 
said  Hampton  Mills ;  —  they  are  to  choose  the  workmen 
and  appoint  the  foremen,  and  direct  the  manufacture. 
They  are  to  buy  the  wool  and  other  necessary  material ; 
they  are  to  sell  the  manufactured  goods  for  the  best  ad 
vantage  of  the  concern.  Acting  as  the  firm  of  "  Spinner 
&  Workman,"  they  are  to  have  the  control  of  the  mill 
as  entirely  as  if  they  had  leased  it  from  the  corporation. 
They  do  this  for  the  benefit  of  all  parties  concerned,  as  is 
hereinafter  described. 

It  is  understood  and  covenanted  that  the  mill  is  to  be 
carried  on  with  the  intention  that  the  profits  are  to  be 
divided  between  the  owners,  the  two  managers,  and  the 
workmen  employed  by  them  —  that  one  third  of  the 
profits  shall  be  paid  to  the  owners,  one  third  to  the 
managers,  and  one  third  to  the  workmen. 

In  the  estimate  of  profits  for  such  division,  it  is  agreed 
that  there  shall  have  been  first  paid  as  necessary  ex 
penses,  — 

1.  Four  per  cent  on  the  sum  of  $75,000  to  the  owners. 

2.  Six  hundred  dollars  a  year  to  each  manager. 

3.  To  each  workman  as  may  be  agreed  with  him,  but 
on  a  scale  of  wages  intended  to  represent  three  fourths  of 
the  current  rate  of  wages  in  his  line. 

4.  If  the  mills  do  not  earn  four  per  cent,  after  paying 
the   other  expenses,  the  owners   shall   receive   only  the 
amount  which  it  does  earn. 

It  is  further  agreed  between  the  said  Thankful  Nourse 
of  the  first  part  and  the  said  Spinner  and  Workman  of  the 
second  and  third  parts  of  this  agreement,  that,  for  the 
needs  of  the  mill  in  carrying  forward  this  enterprise,  if 
said  Spinner  and  Workman  find  it  necessary  to  give  their 


The  Plan  247 

notes  for  discount  at  any  time,  the  said  Thankful  Nourse, 
or  his  agents  for  him,  will  indorse  those  notes  to  the 
amount  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  and  no  more.  And  the 
said  Spinner  and  Workman  shall  have  no  power  to  contract 
other  debts  chargeable  to  the  corporation,  except  for  ad 
vances  on  goods  manufactured.  The  accounts  of  the  firm 
and  of  the  corporation  shall  be  accurately  kept,  and  at  all 
times  open  to  examination  by  either  of  these  parties  or  by 
any  stockholder  or  any  person  commissioned  by  one  third 
of  the  workmen  in  the  mill,  who  are  to  be  regarded  as 
having  the  rights  of  partners  in  the  concern. 

A  balance-sheet  shall  be  prepared  at  the  end  of  every 
half-year  to  show  the  profit  or  loss  of  the  mills  in  the  last 
six  months. 

If  any  balance  of  profit  appears,  after  the  expenses 
above  provided  for  have  been  met,  the  owners  represent 
ing  capital  as  above  described  shall  receive  two  per  cent 
semi-annually  on  their  stock  invested. 

The  remaining  profits  shall  be  credited  in  three  equal 
portions,  but  shall  not  be  drawn  for  division  till  the  end  of 
two  years. 

One  third  shall  be  paid  to  capital  as  above  described. 

One  third  shall  be  paid  to  the  managers. 

One  third  shall  be  paid  to  the  workmen,  —  to  be 
divided  in  the  proportion  of  the  wages  which  they  have 
already  received.  In  the  event  of  the  death  of  any  work 
man,  or  of  his  leaving  the  mill,  his  representative  in 
Hampton  shall  receive  his  share  of  the  profits,  as  if  he 
remained  in  the  employ  of  the  corporation. 

At  the  end  of  five  years  the  mills  shall  be  sold  for  the 
benefit  of  all  concerned,  and  the  profit,  if  any,  shall  be 
divided  among  all  concerned,  on  the  same  basis  as  that 
described  for  the  division  of  the  semi-annual  profits. 


248      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

[At  the  end  of  five  years  the  enterprise  was  so  success 
ful  that  this  part  of  the  agreement  was  cancelled  by  all 
concerned.] 

The  part  of  the  transaction  which  Spinner  knew 
was  difficult,  and  which  Nourse  thought  was  im 
possible,  was  the  persuading  a  sufficient  number 
of  workmen  to  take  hold  on  such  terms  as  those 
described.  But  John  Workman  had  always,  after 
he  had  once  enlisted,  felt  sure  that  that  part  could 
be  brought  about.  He  belonged,  in  particular,  to 
a  workingmen's  club  which  had  often  discussed 
such  subjects.  The  men  were  good  fellows,  who 
did  not  believe  that  "  the  other  fellow  "  in  a  bargain 
was  to  have  nothing.  They  had  loyally  tried  to 
work  out  the  question  of  wages  on  the  same  plan, 
which  should  not  involve  "  knocking  down  and 
dragging  out."  Here  was  a  plan  with  money  be 
hind  it.  On  the  other  hand  there  was  nothing. 
The  Andalusia,  where  most  of  them  had  worked, 
was  bankrupt.  Men  were  really  trudging  about  on 
foot,  seeking  chances  as  weavers  and  dyers,  and 
there  were  no  such  chances. 

What  was  offered  was  almost  starvation  wages, 
but  there  was  no  sham  about  it.  And  every  man 
was  sure  of  a  chance  for  success.  Every  man  was 
compelled  to  invest  for  two  years  the  remaining 
quarter  of  his  income,  which  was  not  paid  him. 

Workman  was  able  to  offer  his  tenement-houses 
at  fabulously  low  rates,  for  the  new  company 
bought  them  with  the  rest  of  the  abandoned  prop- 


The  Plan  249 

erty.  And,  from  the  beginning,  Workman  and 
Spinner  agreed  that  the  money  of  the  company 
was  to  be  made  in  manufacturing.  It  was  not  to 
be  made  out  of  rents  or  stores  or  the  improvement 
of  real  estate  in  Hampton.  The  tenement-houses 
were  valued  at  an  appraisement,  and  stood  at  very 
low  charge  on  the  books.  Workman  said,  there 
fore,  that  he  would  rent  them  for  four  per  cent,  — 
what  had  been  called  in  joke  "  the  idiot's  dividend," 
and  nothing  more.  This  gave  each  hand  a  con 
siderable  advantage  at  the  first,  because  he  was  a 
partner  very  soon,  even  at  "  starvation  wages. " 
The  men  began  to  buy  their  houses  from  the  cor 
poration  on  low  rates  and  terms  which  will  appear 
in  another  chapter. 

Among  Workman's  friends  there  were  several 
enthusiasts,  each  of  whom  undertook  to  engage  ten 
or  twelve  hands  in  the  departments  needed.  Much 
discussion  pro  and  con  went  forward.  At  the  last 
there  was  much  shrinking  of  wives  from  the  pro 
posed  removal.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were 
some  people  who  had  been  wrecked  in  the  original 
failure  at  Hampton.  They  were  all  too  eager  to 
take  hold,  if  in  any  way  they  might.  Some  ofthem 
proved  very  good  people  for  the  purpose.  Most  of 
them  were  the  people  who  would  not  have  suc 
ceeded  anywhere.  By  such  means  the  hands  were 
got  together,  and  the  mill  began  to  convert  wool 
into  woollens. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  RESULTS 

SUCH  was  the  history  of  the  new  start  of 
Hampton,  and  the  plan  on  which  the  several 
adventures  were  formed.  It  is  clear  enough  that 
if  they  had  not  been  bound  together  by  other  ties 
than  those  of  mere  business,  as  it  is  called,  the 
enterprise  would  never  have  succeeded  as  it  did,  — 
indeed,  it  would  never  have  been.  But  they  were 
united  more  closely.  Every  one  of  the  leaders  be 
lieved  that,  in  the  true  order  of  society,  —  the  order 
which  the  Saviour  of  man  lived  and  died  to  estab 
lish, —  there  was  a  right  way  to  do  whatever  the 
world  needed  done.  They  believed,  therefore, 
that  there  was  a  right  way  to  make  woollen  cloth, 
if  only  they  could  find  out  what  it  was.  They 
meant  to  find  it  out ;  they  were  not  afraid  to  ask 
God's  blessing  on  that  endeavor,  nor  to  say  to  each 
otheu  that  they  had  asked  it.  With  notions  and  aims 
as  high  as  these,  Mr.  Spinner  had  carried  his  plan, 
not  now  conceived  for  the  first  time,  to  Mr.  Nourse. 
He,  too,  had  made  the  whole  subject  a  matter 
of  most  serious  inquiry.  He  had  no  wish  to  grow 
rich  from  the  results  of  other  men's  industry,  unless 
they,  in  their  places,  had  a  chance  to  prosper  also. 
He  knew,  however,  that  manufacturing  enterprise 


The  Results  251 

or  mercantile  adventure  have  their  laws,  as  abso 
lute  as  those  of  rainfall  or  of  tide-waves.  He  knew 
that,  as  he  could  not  overpower  those  laws,  more 
than  King  Canute  could  resist  the  flowing  sea, 
whatever  his  wealth  and  power,  he  could  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  withstand  them  by  any  degree  of 
sentiment  or  tenderness.  He  knew  that  the  laws 
of  trade  and  of  social  order  must  be  studied,  and 
that  allowance  must  be  made  for  them.  Mr. 
Workman,  and  Mr.  Spinner  as  well,  wanted  to  see 
the  right  thing  done.  They  were  both  as  proud 
that  they  were  not  born  with  silver  spoons  in  their 
mouths  as  was  ever  any  prince  that  he  was  cradled 
in  purple.  They  were  in  no  sort  beggars  for  a 
change  of  position.  They  were  workmen,  and 
good  workmen;  they  had  been  trained  to  their 
craft,  and  knew  how  to  do  their  work.  What  they 
wanted  was,  that  the  share  which  they  contributed 
in  the  clothing  of  the  world  should  be  as  cordially 
recognized  as  every  other  man's  share.  They 
knew  that  many  others  had  a  share  in  it,  —  capital 
ist,  wool-grower,  transporter,  merchant,  tailor,  and 
stitching-girl.  They  believed  that  a  fair  division 
could  be  made  somehow,  which  should  recognize 
how  much  each  of  these  parties  fairly  earned  and 
deserved  to  have.  This  they  wanted  for  them 
selves  and  their  associates.  They  asked  for  no 
more.  But  they  were  satisfied  with  nothing  less. 
Had  any  one  asked  either  of  these  men  for  charity, 
he  would  have  received  what  he  asked  for  promptly. 
For  they  all  understood  what  the  word  "  charity  " 


252     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

means,  and  acknowledged  the  obligation  it  de 
scribes.  But  all  of  them  knew  that  the  relations 
between  capital,  which  provided  tools  and  mate 
rials  and  work,  which  uses  tools  to  manufacture 
materials,  should  not  be  relations  of  sentiment,  or 
of  charity  or  of  force.  They  should  be  relations 
founded  on  the  eternal  laws  of  God.  And,  as  all 
of  them  were  Christian  men,  they  believed  that 
these  laws  were  revealed  in  the  Gospel. 

Recognizing,  then,  that  for  making  woollen 
cloth,  and  bringing  it  to  a  fit  market,  three  co 
adjutors  were  necessary,  —  capital,  work,  and 
the  directing  skill  which  should  enable  capital  to 
use  the  workman's  industry,  —  they  agreed  that 
these  three  agencies  should  share  equally  in  the 
profit  of  the  article  produced.  The  reader  has 
seen  the  simple  plan  which  they  adopted. 

It  worked  better  than  they  had  dared  to  hope. 
For  the  first  seven  months,  indeed,  after  the 
machinery  had  been  renewed,  the  mills  repaired, 
and  the  new  system  set  going,  they  had  uphill 
work.  The  market  was  flooded  with  the  stock  of 
bankrupt  concerns,  forced  upon  buyers  by  the  as 
signees  and  creditors.  Never,  Spinner  told  me, 
had  prices  sunk  so  low,  and  never  had  the  world 
looked  so  blackly  on  such  adventure.  But  he  had 
never  given  up  his  conviction  that  the  world  must 
have  warm  clothing,  —  at  least  in  the  zones  which 
were  north  of  ten  degrees  of  Northern  Latitude. 
He  kept  on  making  cloth,  —  better  and  better,  he 
said,  —  as  he  was  able  to  test  his  machinery  and  to 


The  Results  253 

train  his  hands,  without  overworking  them.  He 
knew,  he  said,  to  a  quarter  of  a  cent,  what  his 
cloth  cost  him.  He  was  not  yet  obliged  to  sell  a 
yard  beneath  that  cost.  He  did  sell  a  little  at  a 
very  small  advance  upon  it.  And  he  piled  up 
a  good  deal,  waiting  for  a  rise.  After  seven 
months,  the  flood  came.  It  wavered  at  first,  and 
then  poured  in,  cheerfully  and  hopefully.  Some 
jobbers,  who  had  taken  a  little  of  his  cloth  on  com 
mission,  had  received  very  flattering  orders  for 
more,  amounting  almost  to  carte-blanche  for  price ; 
so  sound  had  the  goods  proved,  and  so  well  had 
the  tailors  been  pleased  who  had  used  them.  He 
was  glad  that  he  had  insisted  that  the  voyage 
should  be  a  two  years'  voyage.  But  he  began 
now  to  post  very  encouraging  bulletins  on  his 
news-boards.  He  would  not  make  goods  by 
caucus,  he  said.  But  he  did  mean  that  men  and 
boys  should  know  which  way  the  stream  was  run 
ning  which  carried  the  fortunes  of  them  all. 

He  had,  therefore,  a  regular  habit  of  placing  on 
his  bulletin  board  such  correspondence  or  other 
news  as  he  thought  the  hands  would  be  glad  to 
read.  I  saved  one  or  two  of  the  old  bulletins 
which  he  gave  to  me. 

No.  23. 

"  Extract  from  a  letter  from  New  York  :  —  From  Mer 
cer  and  Goodenoagh,  this  despatch  is  just  received : 
Sold  all  A.  A.  at  four  eighths  advance.  Order  for  twice 
as  much." 


254     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

For  a  considerable  time  after  the  mill  began  to 
run,  they  felt  the  worth  of  the  new  power  enlisted. 
People  were  living  very  economically,  because  they 
had  only  three  quarters  of  the  wages  they  were 
used  to.  But  every  one  of  these  same  people  had 
been  living  more  economically,  because  they  had 
no  wages.  That  was  undoubtedly  a  good  stepping- 
stone  for  the  new  plan.  After  the  beginning,  how 
ever,  there  came  a  period  of  terrible  depression  of 
feeling.  The  absolute  failure  to  sell  any  goods  re 
acted  on  the  men  employed.  They  were  used  to 
receiving  their  pay  without  any  great  thought  of 
the  run  of  trade  which  supplied  it.  But  to  meet 
Mr.  Spinner  when  he  came  back  from  New  York, 
or  to  hear  him  talk,  if  he  would  talk,  after  he  had 
received  his  mail,  and  to  know  that  absolutely  no 
money  had  come  into  the  concern,  —  this  dismayed 
men  who  knew,  of  course,  that  the  thing  could  not 
run  on  forever  on  Mr.  Nourse's  original  investment. 
They  felt  the  reflection  of  the  depression  in  the 
market,  more,  probably,  than  he  would  have  done. 
This  was  the  real  "  Slough  of  Despond "  of  the 
enterprise.  Spinner  spoke  to  me  of  it,  and  de 
scribed  it  with  a  sort  of  shudder.  And  afterward 
Holmes  and  Dyer  and  Sheridan  and  Workman  — 
indeed,  all  of  the  older  hands  with  whom  I  talked 
—  spoke  of  it,  and  with  bated  breath,  as  if  they 
hoped  they  might  never  have  to  go  through  such 
an  experience  again. 

"But  this  I  have  noticed,  Mr.  Freeman,"  said 
Holmes  to  me,  "  unless  a  man  pulls  through  his 


The  Results  255 

Slough  of  Despond  in  any  undertaking,  he  is  no 
good.  And  I  say  that  a  woollen  mill  must  live  the 
life  of  a  man.  Anyhow,  we  went  through  it.  It  was 
a  good  lesson  for  every  one  of  us  who  was  in  it. 

"  We  had  a  revival  meeting,  if  you  will  let  me 
call  it  so,  about  when  things  were  at  their  worst. 
No,  I  do  not  mean  what  I  suppose  you  might  call 
a  religious  revival,  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
religion  in  it,  and,  if  there  had  not  been,  you  and 
I  would  not  be  talking  here.  Almost  all  the 
leaders  spoke.  These  gentlemen  you  know,  all 
spoke.  And  they  put  it  to  the  hands,  as  you 
might  speak  to  the.  men  in  a  sinking  ship,  if  you 
were  encouraging  them  to  pump.  But  they  put  it 
man-fashion.  They  made  the  simplest  wool-picker 
there  understand  that  if  he  deserted  the  ship  he  was 
playing  false  to  every  man  and  every  woman  in  the 
land  who  was  hoping  for  better  times,  better  wages, 
and  a  better  system.  I  know  I  told  the  men  to  go 
home  and  pray  God  to  help  to  carry  it  through. 
I  know  I  took  my  own  advice,  and  I  think  others  did. 

"  That  meeting  was  the  crisis.  One  or  two  fel 
lows  left  us,  —  '  for  their  country's  good.'  But 
there  was  no  grumbling  after  that,  and  even  the 
work  of  the  mill  seemed  to  be  better,  and  I  know 
Workman  said  the  same  thing.  It  was  some  weeks 
before  the  business  situation  of  the  country  seemed 
better.  But  we  felt  better  as  soon  as  we  openly 
recognized  the  difficulty  we  were  in, — well,  and, 
so  to  speak,  pledged  ourselves  to  each  other.  Up 
to  that  time,  we  had  all  been  prophesying  success, 


256      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

— '  smooth  things,'  as  I  said  last  night.  When 
that  meeting  came,  we  owned  that  the  whole  voy 
age  was  not  a  summer  sail,  and  that  every  man 
had  got  to  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  if  we 
were  to  go  through,  —  yes,  and  to  pray  God  to 
help  him.  That  is  the  reason  why  I  say  that  we 
never  really  prospered  till  we  had  gone  through 
the  '  Slough  of  Despond/  " 

It  was  not  the  Slough  of  Despond,  but  the 
reason  of  the  thing,  which  induced  Spinner  and 
Workman,  with  Mr.  Nourse's  approval,  to  yield 
from  the  rigor  of  the  original  plan,  which  had 
demanded  what  Spinner  had  called  "  a  two  years' 
voyage."  At  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
second  year  the  thing  was  well  established,  and  in 
working  order.  Spinner  had  a  large  offer  made 
him  in  New  York  for  all  the  goods  he  had  been 
piling  up,  and,  though  the  market  was  probably 
still  to  rise,  he  determined  not  to  bet  on  the  pos 
sibility,  but  sold  out  for  cash,  so  as  to  clear  all  his 
warehouses.  And  Spinner  said  to  me  that,  on  the 
whole,  in  his  administration,  he  had  gone  on  the 
principle  that  they  were  manufacturers  and  not 
speculators.  "  If  I  could  sell  our  goods  for  what 
it  cost  us  to  make  them,  with  a  fair  profit,  and  a 
fair  margin  to  cover  the  losses  on  sales  I  was  some 
times  forced  to  make,  because  I  needed  money,  — 
why,  I  thought  I  had  better  sell.  I  do  not  mean 
I  had  no  right  to  hold  on.  Probably  I  had  such 
a  right.  But  I  do  not  think  the  right  is  the  same, 
when  I  am  the  manager,  as  I  am  here,  for  a  hun- 


The  Results  257 

dred  or  two  people  who  are  joint  owners  in  the 
goods,  as  it  would  be,  say,  were  I  the  owner  of 
the  Andalusia,  and  owned  all  the  goods  myself. 
Now  I  am  a  trustee.  Then  I  should  be  an  owner." 

I  took  to  heart  what  he  said.  And  as  I  looked 
over  his  books  one  day,  I  could  see  the  advantages 
the  concern  had  derived  from  his  rule.  It  need 
not  be  said  that  the  public  gained  a  similar  advan 
tage.  It  is  undoubtedly  for  the  advantage  of  the 
public  that  prices  should  not  change  by  sudden 
leaps,  and  that  the  movements  of  trade  shall  not 
be  affected  by  what  are  rightly  called  speculative 
plans.  The  co-operators  of  Hampton  did  not,  I 
suppose,  consider  this  advantage  in  making  up 
their  system.  But  it  was  one  of  the  many  points 
in  which  they  builded  better  than  they  knew. 

Acting  upon  this  policy,  Mr.  Spinner  emptied 
his  storehouses,  and  as  he  sold  for  cash  on  very 
short  credit,  he  had  money  in  hand.  Why  should 
the  first  voyage  be  a  two  years'  voyage?  They 
were  already  in  port.  He  was  able  to  declare  his 
first  dividend.  Probably  no  person  but  himself 
and  Workman  had  believed  it  would  come  out  so 
well.  They  had  made  few  losses,  —  nothing,  in 
deed,  of  considerable  account.  And  when  the 
shares  came  to  be  divided  among  all  hands  it 
proved  that,  though  so  late  a  payment,  it  was  large 
enough  to  compensate  every  one  for  the  waiting. 

"My  deary,"  said  the  old  woman  who  washed 
the  windows,  when  Spinner  paid  her  first  money- 
dividend  to  her,  "  if  I  had  had  the  money,  I  should 

17 


258      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

have  spent  it."  And  her  simple  confession  was 
doubtless  true  with  a  great  many  more  of  these 
shareholders,  whose  investment  in  work  had  been 
larger  than  hers. 

From  that  time  till  the  period  of  my  visit  the 
quarterly  balance-sheet  had  been  printed  for  the 
use  of  the  workmen.  It  was  theirs  as  much  as  it 
was  Mr.  Nourse's.  They  were  his  partners  and 
knew  they  were,  and  by  no  sentimental  statement 
merely.  Gradually  they  came  to  use  the  language 
of  owners :  "  We  shall  do  this ;  "  "  We  shall  do 
that;  "  "  We  made  a  mistake  in  running  so  long 
on  such  a  pattern ;  "  "  We  made  a  good  thing  of 
this."  From  the  beginning  they  felt  the  need  of 
avoiding  waste.  "  There  is  not  a  mill  on  this 
stream  but  uses  twice  as  much  oil  as  I  do ;  "  that 
was  the  boast  which  a  young  man  made  to  me 
who  met  the  requisitions  of  the  different  rooms  for 
the  oil  of  their  machinery. 

Spinner  and  Workman,  in  giving  me  the 
accounts  which  I  have  digested  in  these  chapters, 
both  spoke  as  if  they  were  going  back  to  a  time 
far  distant.  In  point  of  fact,  the  establishment  at 
Hampton  was  made  only  seven  years  before.  But 
they  had  seen  so  rapid  a  development  since  their 
original  timid  plans,  that  they  found  it  difficult 
sometimes  to  carry  themselves  to  those  antedilu 
vian  days.  More  than  once  Spinner  came  to  me, 
after  he  had  narrated  something,  to  say  that,  on 
recurring  to  his  notes  or  his  memory,  he  found 
that  he  had  antedated  or  postdated  occurrences, 


The  Results  259 

and  that  he  wanted  to  correct  his  original  state 
ment;  for  they  both  knew  that  I  was  making 
memoranda,  and  that  I  wished  to  draw  up  some 
such  statement  as  I  am  making  now. 

At  the  time  I  visited  them  the  whole  establish 
ment  was  running  on  as  steadily  as  any  manu 
facturing  town  in  the  country.  A  considerable 
part  of  Thankful  Nourse's  share  in  the  capital  had 
been  taken  off  his  hands  by  purchase  from  differ 
ent  heads  of  rooms,  and,  in  one  or  two  instances,  by 
the  widows  of  former  workmen,  who  wished  to  re 
main  in  the  place  themselves,  and  liked  to  feel  that 
they  owned  a  part  of  the  plant.  "  Corporation  is 
co-operation  "  —  this  was  a  favorite  saw  of  Spinner, 
Workman,  and  of  a  man  named  Holmes,  of  whom  I 
have  spoken,  and  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  again. 

I  copy  one  of  their  balance-sheets  to  show 
its  form. 

No.   37 
Hampton  Mills  Balance-Sheet  for  Six  Months. 

CR. 

By  sales  of  manufactured  goods,  after  commis 
sions  and  expenses  have  been  deducted    .  $167,892.11 

DR. 

To  amount   work  of   operatives    .    $15,297.14 

To  amount  paid  salaries,  Work 
man  and  Spinner  ....  300.00 

For  repairs  (machinery  and  mill)    .         6,981.12 

Wool   and  supplies 111,291.14 

Interest  paid  to  Thankful  Nourse, 
Esq.,  and  to  Workman  and 
Spinner 1,500.00 

Balance  of  profit  to  be  divided    .      38,522.71 

$167,982.11 


260     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

At  the  very  beginning,  the  works  had  gone 
through  their  share  of  the  difficulties  of  a  begin 
ning.  After  that  Slough  of  Despond  which  has 
been  described  to  the  reader,  there  had  come 
along  heavy  depression  of  business,  which  had 
very  severely  tried  the  temper  of  all  these  men, 
and  which  they  thought  might  try  the  sympathies 
and  steadiness  of  their  friend  Thankful  Nourse.  I 
believe,  myself,  that  they  quite  misapprehended 
him  in  this  impression.  I  did  not  say  so  to  them, 
but  I  am  quite  willing  to  say  here,  that  I  think 
Mr.  Nourse  had  had  quite  too  much  experience  in 
business  to  suppose  that  there  were  to  be  years  of 
plenty  without  years  of  famine  following  them.  I 
do  not  believe  that  in  New  Zealand,  or  Boothia 
Felix,  or  Novgorod,  or  the  Malayan  Islands,  or 
wherever  his  wandering  disposition  had  carried 
him,  he  gave  one  anxious  thought  to  the  invest 
ment  he  had  made  at  Hampton.  I  suppose  that, 
like  most  other  capitalists  who  have  their  passions 
under  control,  —  or,  why  should  I  not  say  frankly, 
who  are  religious  men  ?  —  he  was  willing  to  take 
the  better  and  the  worse  together,  and  to  submit 
with  modesty  and  with  loyalty  to  what  he  would 
frankly  have  called  the  "  providence  of  God."  I 
knew  Nourse  at  one  time  very  well,  and  I  remem 
ber  that  one  of  his  favorite  axioms,  borrowed  from 
Mr.  Carlyle,  was,  "  There  was  no  act  of  Parliament 
that  I  should  be  happy."  And  he  would  apply 
this  axiom  in  a  dozen  different  ways.  He  would 
say,  there  was  no  act  of  Parliament  that  the  Anda- 


The  Results  261 

lusia  should  declare  ten  per  cent;  there  was  no 
act  of  Parliament  that  Mr.  Hayes  should  receive 
two  thirds  of  the  votes  for  President ;  there  was  no 
act  of  Parliament  that  the  Britannia  should  arrive 
after  a  nine  days'  passage.  In  other  words,  he  was 
willing  to  live  in  God's  world,  subject  to  some 
orders  besides  his  own,  and  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  complaining,  because  in  any  one  year  or  two 
years  things  did  not  turn  out  as  he  would  have 
them  turn  out. 

He  had  not  said  so  to  Spinner  in  his  negotia 
tions  with  Spinner,  but  all  the  same  he  had  not 
come  to  the  determination  to  invest  in  this  tri 
partite  arrangement  without  solitary  thought  and 
without  prayer.  He  believed  that  he  had  done 
the  right  thing  in  investing  his  money  as  he  had 
done,  although  he  had  done  a  thing  wholly  new. 
Having  come  to  this  determination,  having  asked 
God's  help  in  making  this  determination,  he  held 
to  this  determination.  If  anybody  had  spoken 
to  him  about  it,  he  would  have  been  seriously 
annoyed;  but,  if  it  were  a  person  to  whom  he 
thought  he  must  make  an  answer,  —  as,  for  in 
stance,  to  his  wife,  possibly  to  an  old  friend  like 
me,  —  he  would  have  said,  probably,  "  I  have  put 
my  hand  to  the  plough,  and  I  do  not  propose  to 
turn  back." 

He  would  have  meant  that  he  regarded  the  cap 
ital  given  to  him  as  given  to  him  in  trust  to  use  for 
the  best  purposes.  He  had  tried  to  use  it  for  the 
best  purposes  when  he  made  this  disposal  of  it, 


262     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

and  he  would  not  worry  himself,  week  by  week, 
or  month  by  month,  or  even  year  by  year,  in  at 
tending  to  the  details.  He  would  not  dig  up  the 
tree  which  he  had  intentionally  planted  for  a  cer 
tain  purpose  in  his  lawn,  because  at  the  end  of  the 
second  year  or  the  third  year  he  thought  that  the 
tree  was  not  rooting  itself  properly. 

So  much  for  the  difficulties  of  the  enterprise  as 
they  affected  capital.  They  were  not  so  great  as 
Spinner  and  Workman  fancied  they  were.  To 
neither  Spinner  nor  Workman  could  Mr.  Nourse 
say  all  I  did,  nor  were  they  accustomed  to  look  at 
it  from  the  point  of  view  which  is,  I  am  sure,  the 
true  one. 

In  another  chapter  I  will  show  more  at  length 
than  is  worth  while  here  the  experiences  these 
two  gentlemen  themselves  had.  They  were  occu 
pying  a  position  which  appeared  to  be  somewhat 
new.  They  were  subject  to  a  great  deal  of  criti 
cism  from  the  men  whom  they  were  a  little  apt  to 
call  "  sea-lawyers,"  although  they  had  never  been 
to  sea.  They  borrowed  this  phrase  from  the  sailors 
whom  they  knew  very  well  in  earlier  life,  who  use 
it  as  an  expression  of  contempt,  by  which  they 
describe  the  men  who  are  forever  inciting  sailors 
to  mutinous  or  disrespectful  thoughts  of  their 
employers  while  they  are  not  themselves  good  sea 
men.  There  are  such  men  in  all  industries,  whether 
they  go  to  sea  or  not  I  have  no  doubt  that  Spin 
ner  and  Workman  both  despised  them,  but  still 
such  critics  had  it  in  their  power  to  make  them 


The  Results  263 

very  unhappy.  Such  critics  were  constantly  try 
ing  to  make  the  hands  think  that  Workman  and 
Spinner  overestimated  themselves,  —  took  airs  upon 
themselves,  —  and,  when  dividends  were  made,  took 
more  than  they  had  earned.  The  phrase,  which 
Spinner  had  himself  used  when  he  said  that  he  was 
to  be  a  buffer  between  two  cars  and,  if  he  could, 
ameliorate  the  shock,  seemed  a  very  pat  one  to 
describe  the  misfortunes  which  belong  to  the 
midway  position.  Workman  said  to  me  one  day, 
half  laughing,  that  he  thought  they  would  have 
fared  far  better  if  there  had  been  an  old  estab 
lished  name  by  which  they  could  be  called.  In 
point  of  fact,  they  were  called  "  managers  "  of  the 
mill,  and  the  dividend  paid  to  them  was  the  divi 
dend  paid  to  "  management."  He  showed  me  a 
little  treatise  on  the  subject,  written  by  I  do  not 
know  whom,  which  said  that  in  France  the  man 
would  be  called  the  entrepreneur >  meaning  the  per 
son  who  took  hold  between  one  end  and  the  other. 
We  have  the  same  root  in  our  word  "  enterprise," 
and  Workman  said  he  was  tempted  to  call  himself 
an  "  enterpriser,"  and  he  wished  that  somebody 
had  invented  such  a  word  two  hundred  years  ago. 
He  said,  if  it  could  be  understood  when  they  were 
spoken  of,  that  the  whole  thing  existed  because 
they  were  there,  it  would  be  better  for  them  both, 
and  he  felt  that  if  some  good  word  could  express 
this  every  time  they  were  spoken  of  it  would  be  a 
good  thing.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  the  word  '  man 
ager  '  has  in  itself  not  a  bad  sound,  but  when  we 


264     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

speak  of  managing  a  thing,  we  sometimes  imply 
that  we  are  managing  it  in  an  underhand  way.  It  is 
not  always  so.  I  believe  nobody  thinks  the  '  man 
ager  '  of  a  theatre  is  necessarily  a  mean  man ;  but 
the  moment  we  speak  of  a  '  political  manager,'  we 
have  the  idea  of  a  trick.  I  could  wish,  therefore/' 
he  said,  "  that  we  were  not  called  the  management, 
but  we  are,  and  we  have  to  bear  our  burden  as 
well  as  we  can." 

Nor  were  the  workmen  free  from  their  share  of 
annoyances.  On  the  whole,  the  body  corporate 
of  Hampton  sloughed  off  the  inferior  and  dissatis 
fied  people.  The  management  was  strong  enough, 
and  their  friends  were  strong  enough,  to  say  squarely 
to  the  sea-lawyers  and  other  such,  that  if  they  did 
not  like  to  stay  at  Hampton  there  was  no  act  of 
Parliament  by  which  they  need  stay  there. 

They  could  be  dismissed,  at  very  short  notice, 
from  the  mills ;  and  I  was  amused  to  find  that  this 
democratic  management  was  very  much  more 
peremptory  in  such  dismissals  than  were  the  direct 
ors  of  many  a  manufacturing  establishment  which 
I  had  seen  before,  who  were,  to  a  large  extent, 
afraid  of  irritating  or  wounding  the  feelings  of  their 
hands.  There  was  no  reason  for  any  such  fear  in 
this  case,  because  the  hands  were,  practically,  with 
the  management,  the  directors  of  the  whole  con 
cern.  On  the  whole,  as  I  say,  the  hands  were 
loyal  to  the  plan.  They  were  more  and  more 
interested  in  the  plan.  It  cultivated  their  self- 
respect,  and,  as  the  reader  has  been  told,  it  proved 


The  Results  265 

profitable  to  them.  But  none  the  less  were  they 
subject  to  invasions  from  committees  of  inspection 
and  committees  of  various  delegates  from  county 
conventions,  from  "  Federations  of  Toilers,"  from 
"  Organizations  of  Industry,"  from  "  Unions  of 
Handicraft,"  and  from  various  other  organizations 
which  had  much  more  picturesque  and  mediaeval 
names.  And  these  delegates  either  had  some 
"  wrong,"  showing  that  they  were  offended  by 
the  somewhat  independent  attitude  of  Hamp 
ton,  or  they  had  some  new  plan  for  the  coming 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  which  they  wanted 
to  propose  to  the  Hampton  workmen.  Now 
the  Hampton  workmen  were,  in  fact,  the  most 
democratic  set  of  people  in  the  world.  They 
were  not  proud,  they  appreciated  good-fellowship 
and  camaraderie  as  much  as  any  men  did;  but 
they  were  beginning  to  own  their  own  mill,  they 
did  have  a  third  part  of  the  profits  of  it,  they 
wanted  it  to  succeed,  and  they  wanted  it  to  succeed 
in  their  own  way.  They  disliked  to  be  lectured 
about  the  conduct  of  their  business  as  much  as 
any  purse-proud  capitalist  in  Lynn  or  in  German- 
town  dislikes  to  be  lectured  about  his.  Still  it  was 
not  a  nice  thing,  it  was  not  an  agreeable  thing,  to 
be  placarded  in  all  the  workmen's  journals  of  the 
country  as  being  only  a  mitigated  set  of  scabs, 
or  as  being  pretenders  in  wolves'  clothing,  or 
as  being  people  who,  having  got  a  snug  thing 
themselves,  were  trying  to  kick  down  the  ladder 
by  which  they  had  risen.  All  the  same,  they  had 


266     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

this  burden  to  bear ;  and  it  was  among  the  diffi 
culties  of  the  earlier  days  at  Hampton. 

It  is  better  to  speak  of  all  those  difficulties  to 
gether,  than  to  attempt  to  convey,  in  any  historical 
narrative,  the  way  in  which  they  played  in  with 
each  other,  antagonized  each  other,  and  at  the 
same  time  corrected  each  other.  Gradually  every 
body,  probably,  came  to  feel  that,  to  borrow  Mr. 
Nourse's  maxim,  there  was  no  act  of  Parliament 
that  Hampton  should  go  on  without  its  rubs  and 
periods  of  starvation.  On  the  whole,  it  had  be 
come  more  and  more  a  fixed  institution,  with  its 
own  traditions,  —  and  that  is  a  matter  of  great  im 
portance, —  with  its  own  habits,  which  sprung 
from  these  traditions,  and  with  that  success  which 
belongs  alike  to  established  traditions  and  estab 
lished  habits. 

To  sum  up,  under  a  few  general  heads,  the  more 
remarkable  of  these  successes,  I  think  I  should 
say,  first  of  all,  that  the  system  had  brought  in  and 
kept  in  a  very  superior  set  of  workmen  and  work 
women.  There  were  not  so  many  women  engaged 
as  there  would  generally  have  been  in  a  mill  of  the 
size,  and,  as  will  be  seen  in  another  chapter,  there 
were  very  few  children  engaged.  But  I  knew 
enough  of  the  woollen  manufacture  to  know  that 
the  intelligence,  quickness,  promptness,  and  effec 
tiveness  of  the  slowest  and  poorest  hands  in  any 
room  was  well  up  to  the  standard  of  the  better  half 
of  the  workmen  or  workwomen  who  would  have 
been  engaged  in  the  same  room  in  an  ordinary  es- 


The  Results  267 

tablishment.  I  spoke  to  Spinner  about  this,  and  he 
said  I  was  certainly  right.  He  said  he  had  thought 
of  it  a  great  deal ;  he  at  one  time  tried  to  put  in 
figures  some  statement  of  the  advantage  which  they 
derived  from  the  clear  and  undoubted  superiority  of 
their  work-people.  He  had  not  found  it  possible 
to  make  any  tabular  or  distinctive  statement.  "  But 
it  amounts  to  this,"  he  said :  "  they  are  all  deter 
mined  that  this  thing  shall  succeed  ;  they  are  deter 
mined  the  cloth  shall  be  good,  and  shall  maintain 
the  reputation  that  it  has  in  the  market.  If  there 
is  any  new  style,  if  there  is  a  bit  of  new  machinery, 
if  there  is  a  new  fad  about  dyeing,  —  no  matter 
what  it  is,  it  is  a  thing  that  interests  them  as  much 
as  a  new  baby  interests  the  people  in  the  house 
where  it  was  born.  They  pet  the  baby  and  cuddle 
it  and  do  everything  they  can  to  make  the  new  plan 
prove  satisfactory."  In  the  long  run,  this  is  evi 
dently  so.  I  am  disposed  to  think  it  springs  from 
self-respect  quite  as  much  as  from  self-interest, 
to  which  it  might  ordinarily  be  ascribed,  and 
is  of  great  value  in  any  work.  And  when  you 
come  to  any  change,  —  when  one  of  the  heads 
of  a  room,  for  instance,  finds  it  for  his  advantage 
to  take  a  higher  place  in  some  other  mill,  when 
you  want  to  promote  somebody  to  the  vacant 
position,  you  find  that  the  people  who  have  been 
faithful  in  few  things  are  really  able  to  be  masters 
of  many  things,  and  that  you  can  promote  them 
without  difficulty,  and  without  injury  to  the  run 
ning  of  your  organism. 


268     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

I  am  not  quite  sure  whether  I  am  right,  but  the 
saving  of  material  proved  also  to  be  very  consider 
able.  Even  in  such  a  detail  as  this  of  oil,  which  is 
a  very  considerable  charge  in  a  woollen  mill,  the 
young  men  who  had  the  care  of  the  oil-room  were 
so  careful  that,  very  early  in  the  affair,  Workman 
and  Spinner  found  that  these  fellows  had  driven 
up  the  others  to  care,  amounting  almost  to  parsi 
mony,  indeed,  which  involved  very  considerable 
reduction.  Among  the  papers  which  I  brought 
away,  as  memorials  of  my  visit,  is  a  little  printed 
bulletin,  numbered  13,  which  is  a  boast  that,  in  the 
four  weeks  preceding,  seventy-three  gallons  of  oil 
had  been  saved  compared  with  the  expenditure  in 
the  corresponding  four  weeks  in  the  preceding 
year.  In  the  reduction  of  the  amount  of  wool 
used,  Workman  himself  acknowledged  to  me  that 
he  had  been  surprised.  They  told  me  that,  at  the 
beginning,  it  was  not  infrequent  to  find  that,  with 
the  same  number  of  yards  completed,  one  per  cent 
of  wool  had  been  saved  in  a  single  week.  Of 
course  such  improvement  as  this  could  not  go 
on  forever.  But  it  hardly  ever  happened  that  the 
hands  relaxed  the  care  to  which  they  were  trained, 
partly  by  self-interest,  partly  by  loyalty,  and  partly 
indeed  by  pride.  They  entered  into  the  feeling  of 
an  old-fashioned  housekeeper,  who  hates  to  see 
things  thrown  away.  She  even  wants  her  children 
to  eat  after  their  hunger  is  satisfied,  because  she 
does  not  like  to  have  anything  left  on  the  plate. 
Everybody  in  every  department  of  these  mills  had 


The  Results  269 

that  same  unwillingness  to  see  anything  lost  which 
might  have  been  made  useful.  In  another  chapter,  I 
will  describe  at  some  length  the  pride  which  I  found 
all  the  leaders  of  the  system  taking  in  the  young 
life  of  their  village.  Seven  years  had  changed  the 
boys  and  girls  of  ten  into  young  men  and  women 
of  seventeen,  —  the  most  miraculous  change  which 
takes  place  in  human  life.  It  required  no  hint 
from  those  who  were  most  interested,  to  make  me 
see  that  these  young  men  and  maidens  were  people 
of  a  type  quite  different  from  the  young  people  of 
their  age  whom  one  would  find  in  a  manufacturing 
town,  where  everything  had  been  neglected,  and 
where  no  central  power  was  trying  to  bring  out  the 
very  best  training  for  the  young,  and  to  surround 
them  with  the  most  cheerful  and  happy  influences. 
Without  going  further  into  such  details,  it  may 
be  said  that  nothing  is  so  successful  as  success. 
The  financial  success  of  Hampton  appears  to  me, 
now  that  I  am  looking  back  upon  the  whole,  as  the 
least  interesting  and  the  least  important  feature  in 
its  administration  and  in  its  history.  I  shall  hardly 
be  believed,  but  I  think  that  four  out  of  five,  nay, 
perhaps  that  all  of  the  leading  members  of  the 
community  would  say,  that  they  have  ceased  to 
think  of  the  financial  success  as  being  the  first 
matter  which  they  considered.  They  found  them 
selves  in  a  place  where  there  was  no  longer  any 
irritation  in  the  discharge  of  their  daily  duty. 
Everybody  knew  he  was  justly  treated.  There  was 
no  longer  that  angry  question  why  things  were 


270     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

not  otherwise,  which,  under  other  circumstances, 
would  have  embittered  the  first  waking  at  morn 
ing,  would  have  embittered  every  morsel  of  food, 
would  have  embittered  the  hour  when  he  retired 
to  bed  at  night.  This  was  all  gone.  Whether 
the  thing  succeeded  or  not,  the  thing  was  fair, 
and  this  sense  of  fairness  gave  an  evenness  to 
people's  lives  which  the  older  members  of  the 
community  knew  how  to  value.  Next  to  this,  I 
should  say  that  there  was  a  certain  enlargement 
of  life,  which  they  could  hardly  define  them 
selves,  perhaps,  and  perhaps  did  not  compare  with 
the  somewhat  limited  range  of  the  life  of  people 
who  were  taking  care  of  themselves  and  taking 
care  of  none  beside.  These  people  were  living, 
not  a  mere  personal  life,  but  in  the  life  of  the  com 
munity.  They  had  all  common  interests,  and 
these  interests  were  really  large  interests.  To  be 
taken  out  of  themselves,  to  be  thinking  of  some 
thing  better  than  their  own  headaches  and  heart 
aches,  —  this  was  in  itself  an  advantage  which, 
whether  they  knew  how  to  state  it  in  words  or  not, 
affected  every  hour  of  every  day. 

The  great  essential  of  all  society  is,  that  the  lines 
of  promotion  be  kept  open.  A  man  can  bear  even 
a  very  hard  life,  if  he  has  reason  to  think  that  next 
week  something  is  going  to  open  before  him  which 
will  enable  him  to  throw  off  this  or  that  discomfort 
of  to-day.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  will  chafe  in 
a  very  prosperous  life,  if  you  tell  him  that,  by  any 
fatality,  he  must  live  on  with  that  machinery,  in 


The  Results  271 

that  habit,  eating  that  food,  and  doing  that  work 
forever.  Open  promotion  is  the  central  word  for 
American  society  and  American  life.  This  open 
promotion  was  the  privilege  of  every  man  and 
woman,  boy  and  girl,  in  Hampton.  It  might  not 
come  very  soon,  but  every  one  knew  that  it  was 
ready  and  possible.  It  will  be  shown  in  another 
chapter  that  the  boys  and  girls  were  by  no  means 
chained  or  constrained  to  a  future  in  which  they 
should  be  operatives  in  a  woollen  factory,  their  life 
long.  Already  there  were  instances  where  the 
young  people  who  had  this  taste  or  that  gift,  lead 
ing  them  into  other  occupations,  had  followed 
those  tastes  or  used  those  gifts.  Nobody  felt  com 
pelled,  by  the  law  of  the  instrument,  to  accept  one 
position  or  another.  There  was,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  openness  of  choice  which  seems  to  be 
the  requisite  of  any  happy  life. 

This  is  a  poor  enough  statement  of  details,  and 
a  poor  enough  effort  to  analyze  the  prosperity  of 
a  successful  community.  Perhaps  it  would  have 
been  as  well  to  say  that  these  people  had,  on 
the  whole,  tried  to  meet  the  duties  which  came  to 
them,  as  Christian  men  and  women.  They  had 
done  their  best,  on  the  whole,  to  carry  out  the 
Christian  law  of  love ;  they  certainly  were  living 
daily  with  the  loyal  hope  that  the  future  was  to  be 
even  better  than  the  present;  and  this  love  and 
this  faith  were  based  on  an  abiding  faith  in  God, 
whose  law  they  were  trying  to  obey.  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  heard  any  man  say  so  while  I  was  in 


272     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Hampton,  but  when  I  look  back  upon  their  life,  or 
what  pleased  people  to  call  their  experiment,  it 
does  not  seem  to  me  that  that  experiment  was  so 
hazardous,  for  I  always  remember  who  said  that,  if 
any  community  of  brethren  would  trust  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  all  the 
little  things  of  time,  for  which  petty  men  are  sel 
fishly  anxious,  will  certainly  be  added  to  the 
endeavor  of  that  community. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   STORE 

I  DID  not  like  to  hang  about  the  counting-room 
for  an  unreasonable  length  of  time,  and  yet  I 
was  so  much  interested  in  what  I  saw  at  Hampton 
that  I  did  not  abridge  my  visit.  As  I  have  in 
timated,  I  could  occupy  myself  in  the  woods  and 
by  the  brooks,  but  I  also  found  that  I  became 
acquainted  among  the  workmen  and  their  wives 
and  children;  and  bearing  in  mind  all  along  the 
object  of  my  visit,  I  followed  up  such  acquaint 
ances.  Travelling  as  long  as  I  had  been,  there 
was  one  and  another  matter  which  I  wanted  to 
refit  in  my  little  luggage,  and  so  I  went  into  the 
"  store  "  once  and  again  for  my  purchases.  It  is 
the  standing  miracle  of  a  place  like  this,  when  it  is 
well  kept,  that  the  clerk  is  able  to  supply  you  with 
everything  you  need,  from  a  heron's  wing  to  a 
hand-saw.  I  found  that  they  could  fit  my  watch 
with  a  new  crystal  just  as  readily  as  I  found  that 
they  could  sell  me  hooks  and  flies  of  the  last 
London  patterns.  Sometimes  the  store  was  wholly 
empty,  and  I  was  the  only  customer.  Sometimes, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  would  be  twenty  or  thirty 

18 


274     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

people  there,  almost  always  women,  for  I  observed 
that  the  women  seemed  to  be  the  purse-holders 
and  were  intrusted  with  the  buying  and  selling 
of  this  community.  I  stored  up  many  questions 
to  put  to  Spinner  about  the  mechanism  by  which 
these  results  were  obtained,  and  one  afternoon, 
as  we  were  driving  together,  I  brought  them  all 
out,  and  made  him  answer  them  all  together. 

"  I  see  you  have  got  on  quite  a  central  affair," 
he  said.  "  I  shall  make  but  a  blundering  story  of 
it,  for  indeed  the  system  is  one  we  have  hit  upon 
from  hand  to  mouth,  if  indeed  it  be  a  system  yet, 
and  yet  I  think  it  is  beginning  to  work  well. 

"  When  I  came  up  here  first  with  Workman,  I 
said  to  him  that  whatever  else  we  did,  in  our  new 
capacity  as  manufacturers,  we  would  wash  our 
hands  of  *  store-pay,'  with  all  its  complications, 
jealousies,  and  iniquities.  You  can  see  yourself 
that  there  is  a  great  temptation  for  a  man  who 
comes  into  a  new  neighborhood,  actually  cuts 
down  trees  and  builds  houses  for  a  community, 
to  take  upon  himself  the  maintenance  of  the 
country  store.  It  is  very  easy  to  persuade  such 
a  man  that  it  is  his  duty  to  do  so ;  that  he  should 
keep  his  workmen  from  being  cheated;  and,  in 
four  cases  out  of  five,  it  is  very  probable  that  he 
does.  Still  the  thing  is  false  in  theory.  Either 
a  man  is  a  manufacturer  or  he  is  a  tradesman. 
If  he  is  a  manufacturer,  he  is,  so  far  forth,  not 
a  tradesman,  and  if  he  is  a  tradesman,  he  is,  so 
far  forth,  not  a  manufacturer.  Precisely  as  the 


The  Store  275 

head  of  a  factory  had  better  not  be  the  leader 
of  a  military  band,  or  as  he  had  better  not  be 
a  publisher  of  school-books,  he  had  better  not  be 
the  man  to  keep  a  country  store.  At  least,  that 
was  what  I  said  to  Workman,  and  what  Work 
man  said  to  me.  We  had  seen  endless  jealousies 
among  workmen  because  they  supposed  their 
employers  were  cheating  them  in  this  way,  and 
he  said  that,  in  our  model  town  here,  this  diffi 
culty  should  not  exist.  I  do  not  think  we  gave 
much  thought  as  to  what  should  come  in  its 
place;  I  suppose  we  were  too  easy  about  that, 
and  imagined  that  it  was  one  of  those  things 
which  would  take  care  of  itself.  In  which  easi 
ness  of  ours,  however,  we  were  much  mistaken, 
for  the  thing  has  given  us  as  much  difficulty  as 
anything  has  given  us  which  we  have  had  to 
handle  here.  It  has  given  us  the  more  difficulty 
because  we  are  what  you  see,  —  the  only  element 
of  life  here ;  there  is  absolutely  nothing  but  what 
we  bring  here,  which  divides  this  place  from  such 
a  wilderness  as  you  saw  yesterday  when  you  were 
fishing  above  Jotham's  Ledge. 

"  We  both  saw,  when  we  looked  at  the  prop 
erty  we  had  bought,  that  there  was  a  building 
for  a  store,  which  the  old  company  had  carried 
on.  Its  reputation  was  of  the  worst.  They  had 
paid  their  workmen  in  orders  on  the  store,  and, 
rightly  or  not,  the  workmen  thought  that  these 
orders  had  been  the  means  of  endless  cheating. 
When  we  began  to  talk  with  men  about  coming 


276     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

up,  the  natural  question  was  where  they  were  to 
do  their  marketing,  and  how  they  were  to  buy 
their  groceries,  and  so  on.  This  question  we 
could  only  answer  by  the  proud  statement  that 
there  was  to  be  no  store-pay, — -that  though  we 
did  not  pay  much  we  should  pay  cash,  and  that 
they  might  buy  where  they  chose.  This  pleased 
the  workmen  very  much,  till  they  found  that 
buying  where  they  chose  meant  going  down  to 
Wentworth  or  going  down  to  Whitby's.  And 
before  long,  there  came  a  drummer  up  here,  who 
saw  we  had  an  empty  store,  and  asked  if  we  did 
not  want  to  have  a  store  up  here,  and  we  said 
we  did.  Before  a  week  was  over,  he  communi 
cated  with  his  employers,  and  they  had  sent  up  a 
clerk  who  had  prospected,  and  we  had  a  store  es 
tablished  here,  purely  on  Adam  Smith's  principle, 
that  the  demand  created  the  supply.  The  man 
hung  out  a  big  sign,  and  his  goods  began  to  come  in. 
"  I  found  very  soon  that  the  people  disliked 
him  and  his  quite  as  much  as  the  people  before 
them  disliked  the  store-pay  of  their  employers. 
Naturally  enough,  his  principals  pushed  off  on 
us  what  they  could  not  sell  at  home,  and,  in  par 
ticular,  they  pushed  off  on  us  the  wares,  such  as 
they  were,  of  which  they  were  special  agents. 
The  boys  laughed  very  much  because  there  was 
an  immense  display  of  canned  tomatoes  and 
canned  corn  and  other  such  stuff,  and  they  said 
they  were  expected  to  live  on  canned  vegetables 
that  were  ten  years  old.  Somebody  would  take 


The  Store  277 

the  cars  down  to  Wentworth,  and  the  next  day 
would  have  his  groceries  sent  over  the  road  here, 
for  a  quarter  dollar,  and  then  would  brag  to  the 
others  about  how  much  he  had  saved  by  his  lit 
tle  journey.  So  they  very  soon  starved  that  man 
out.  After  him,  the  Wentworth  people  tried  to 
establish  a  branch  here,  but  on  the  whole  they 
gave  that  up.  It  was  better  for  them,  though 
it  was  not  so  well  for  us,  to  have  our  men  send 
their  wives  over  the  road  and  do  their  shopping 
at  their  headquarters  establishment,  than  it  was  to 
be  keeping  a  couple  of  clerks  alive  here  through 
the  machinery  of  a  separate  store. 

"  It  happened  that  at  that  time  George  Holy- 
oake  was  in  the  country.  I  do  not  think  his  mes 
sage  was  introducing  the  Rochdale  system  here, 
but  I  knew  he  knew  all  about  it,  and  I  sent  to  him 
and  asked  him  if  he  would  come  and  see  us  in  the 
course  of  his  travels.  So  it  was  that  our  people 
had  a  chance  to  hear  him  talk  one  night,  and  he 
was  good  enough  to  give  them  an  off-hand  talk  on 
the  working  of  the  Rochdale  system,  and  said 
something  as  to  the  reason  why  it  had  not  in 
troduced  itself  more  fully  in  America.  The  rea 
son  is,  in  brief,  that  our  people  like  to  move  from 
place  to  place  as  much  as  they  do,  and  the  Rochdale 
plan  really  rests,  though  I  hardly  think  the  English 
men  know  it,  on  the  understanding  that  the  more 
intelligent  workmen  in  a  mill  stay  by  the  mill  from 
the  time  they  are  born  till  the  time  they  die.  At  the 
bottom  of  his  boots,  the  Englishman  does  not  like 


278     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

to  move  from  place  to  place  with  his  family ;  while 
at  the  bottom  of  his  boots  an  American  does. 
However,  we  had  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
from  the  supply  and  demand  system,  and  Work 
man  himself  and  some  other  of  the  more  intelli 
gent  men  were  well  disposed  to  try  the  Rochdale 
system,  as  Holyoake  explained  to  us.  Mark  my 
words.  You  are  going  from  place  to  place  in 
America,  and  you  hear  a  great  deal  of  talk  about 
co-operation  in  trade ;  but  I  tell  you  that  the  man 
is  a  fool  who  thinks  he  knows  more  about  the 
principles  of  co-operation  than  these  hard-headed 
Englishmen  have  found  out  in  the  course  of 
seventy-five  years  of  every  kind  of  experience. 
They  do  not  theorize  a  great  deal  in  England, 
but  they  do  know  facts ;  and  the  Rochdale  system, 
which  is  a  difficult  system  to  explain,  has  come 
into  being  from  the  observation  of  the  failure 
of  more  systems  than  were  ever  tried  in  Amer 
ica.  So  far  as  I  have  seen,  the  experiments  of 
co-operations  in  trade  in  America  have  failed  very 
steadily,  because  in  every  instance  there  was  a  man 
who  was  more  or  less  a  crank,  who  founded  the 
store,  or  whatever  he  called  it,  and  he  was  deter 
mined  to  try  his  own  system.  Now  the  Rochdale 
system  is  not  any  man's  system  in  particular;  it 
is  the  result  of  a  great  many  failures  and  some  suc 
cesses,  and  the  fact  that  it  works  as  well  as  it  does 
in  England  is  a  certain  and  strong  argument  in  its 
favor." 

I  said  to  Spinner  that  I  ought  to  know  what  the 


The  Store  279 

Rochdale  system  was,  but  that  I  did  not,  and  asked 
him  if  there  was  any  brief  statement  of  it.  He  said 
"  Oh,  yes  !  "  and  he  telephoned  to  the  store  to  ask 
them  to  send  over  to  me  one  of  their  little  reports, 
which  had  an  account  of  the  system  as  they  meant 
to  apply  it ;  and  I  will  print  it  in  the  form  in  which 
they  gave  it  to  me  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

"  The  upshot  of  it  all  is,"  said  Spinner,  "  that 
the  store  is  well  kept  and  not  badly  kept.  Old 
Randolph  was  right  when  he  said  that  there  was 
no  manure  like  the  foot  of  the  owner.  They  have 
turned  out  a  good  many  clerks,  and  a  good  many 
have  resigned  because  they  wanted  to  turn  them 
out,  but  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  those  young 
fellows  they  have  there  now  understand  the  busi 
ness  quite  as  well  as  if  they  had  been  sent  up  from 
New  York  for  the  purpose.  I  know  very  well  that 
the  two  young  women  who  keep  the  accounts  and 
write  the  letters  understand  the  business  a  great 
deal  better  than  most  of  the  people  I  see  in  similar 
capacities,  when  I  am  in  Broadway.  Here  is  some 
thing  gained  at  the  beginning.  In  the  second 
place,  nobody  can  complain ;  or,  if  he  does  com 
plain,  he  carries  his  complaints  where  he  ought  to 
carry  them,  instead  of  bringing  them  to  me  or  to 
you  or  to  Workman  or  to  anybody  else  who  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  What  do  I  care  whether 
the  '  boiled  shirt '  which  one  of  my  pickers  buys  is 
made  according  to  the  last  London  fashion  or  not? 
I  would  not  be  bothered  with  such  things,  —  and 


280      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

as  this  thing  works  I  am  not  bothered  with  it. 
The  man  who  buys  the  shirt  is  to  a  certain  extent 
the  man  who  sells  the  shirt.  At  all  events,  if  the 
person  who  selected  the  shirt  has  selected  it  wrong, 
it  is  the  fault  of  the  buyer,  who  ought  to  have  been 
at  the  quarterly  meeting  and  chosen  somebody  else 
in  the  directory.  You  can  hardly  understand,  liv 
ing  as  you  do,  what  a  relief  it  is  to  be  relieved  from 
all  this  nonsense. 

"Then,  in  general,  all  these  co-operative  shops 
have  the  great  advantage  that  they  have  no  need 
whatever  to  advertise  their  wares  or  their  existence. 
You  will  find  that  the  largest  co-operative  shops  in 
England  hardly  advertise  at  all.  Every  purchaser 
is  interested  in  making  somebody  else  purchase, 
and  he  is  '  touting,'  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
for  the  shop  all  the  time.  When  anybody  comes 
to  make  a  visit  here,  —  you,  for  instance,  —  the 
visitor  goes  to  the  store  and  buys  there.  And 
when  you  bought  a  watch-key  the  other  day  it 
was  to  the  advantage  of  every  man  in  this  village 
that  you  bought  it  here  instead  of  buying  it  in  New 
Haven.  If  you  only  take  into  account  the  relief 
to  you  that  you  do  not  see  the  long  bragging  ad 
vertisements  in  the  village  newspaper,  it  is  a  good 
deal ;  but  really  these  people  have  no  occasion 
whatever  to  advertise. 

"  Of  course  they  have  no  occasion  whatever  to 
keep  adulterated  goods,  or  to  keep  anything  which 
is  not  what  it  pretends  to  be.  Why  should  a  man 
cheat  himself?  Why  should  the  person  who  is 


The  Store  281 

going  to  buy  the  goods  send  an  agent  down  to 
New  York  to  buy  pickles  which  are  artificially 
stained,  or  coffee  which  has  been  made  out  of 
paste,  or  anything  else  which  is  not  what  it  pre 
tends  to  be?  You  are  pleased  to  compliment  our 
shop ;  really,  this  freedom  from  all  temptation  to 
buy  inferior  articles  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  merit  of  what  you  have  seen. 

"  Whether  such  a  system  as  I  have  described  to 
you  can  be  made  to  succeed  in  America  on  a  scale 
larger  than  that  upon  which  we  are  trying,  it  is 
more  doubtful.  But  I  am  quite  clear  about  this, 
—  that  if  some  man  who  knows  this  country  well, 
and  knows  the  habit  of  our  workingmen,  will  give 
the  same  pains  to  this  subject  here  that  Holyoake 
has  done  in  England,  we  shall  get  an  American 
adaptation  of  the  Rochdale  plan  which  will  answer 
our  purpose.  The  adaptation  which  we  have  made 
here  may  not  be  such  as  they  would  need  some 
where  else.  What  we  have  done  is  to  give  rather 
more  capital  stock  to  the  undertaking  in  the  begin 
ning  than  could  be  supplied  by  the  simple  co-opera 
tive  principle.  Holyoake  would  have  rebuked  us 
for  this,  I  think,  but  it  was  really  necessary  in  the 
conditions  in  which  we  were.  I  hope  as  heartily 
as  he  would  do,  that  gradually  we  may  have  the 
affair  more  precisely  on  the  English  basis,  but  that 
is  still  a  matter  for  experiment  with  us.  I  say  this 
because  I  do  not,  as  I  have  said,  care  to  vary  much 
from  the  only  successful  experiment  of  this  sort 
which  has  been  tried  in  the  world. 


282     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

"  I  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  what  George 
Holyoake  says  in  all  his  books  of  the  desirableness 
of  each  store  maintaining,  as  a  store,  its  reading- 
room  and  other  methods  of  instruction.  There 
was  a  very  decent  room  or  hall  in  the  second  story 
of  the  store  building,  which  we  had  turned  over  to 
them ;  and,  after  communication  with  Mr.  Nourse, 
I  agreed  to  let  that  room  go  without  any  additional 
rent,  and  to  be  at  the  cost  of  fitting  it  up  with 
tables  and  chairs,  for  a  reading-room.  It  serves, 
of  course,  for  the  business  meetings  of  the  pro 
prietors  of  the  store,  and  the  men  bring  to  it  such 
newspapers,  magazines,  and  books  as  they  care  to 
have  there.  They  are  permitted  to  smoke  there, 
and  it  becomes  a  very  respectable  club-room  for 
the  village.  After  a  while,  the  women  complained 
that,  although  they  were  often  stockholders  in  the 
store,  they  could  not  stay  where  the  men  were 
smoking;  and  it  ended  in  my  giving  the  use  of 
another  room,  which  was  a  sort  of  back  building, 
which  was  fitted  up  for  a  general  reading-room, 
as  it  was  called,  where  smoking  was  prohibited. 
I  think,  on  the  whole,  this  has  proved  to  be  the 
more  popular  room  of  the  two,  and  there  is  a  little 
competition  between  them  as  to  which  shall 
get  the  latest  magazines  and  the  best,  and  the 
presence  of  the  women  adds  the  element  of  at 
tractiveness  to  the  place,  which,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  competes  with  the  attraction  of  the  pipes 
and  the  freer  rules  of  the  original  room.  All  this 
you  will  see  if  you  go  through  the  store ;  or,  if  you 


The  Store  283 

look  at  the  accounts,  you  will  see  that  something 
—  not  much  —  is  spent  for  the  library  and  reading- 
room  in  every  quarterly  distribution.  When  they 
are  prosperous,  they  are  likely  to  make  rather  a 
larger  distribution ;  then  when  they  are  poor  they 
appropriate  nothing  at  all ;  in  fact,  this  goes  more 
or  less  by  fancy,  according  as  the  drift  of  any  meet 
ing  is  led  by  a  parsimonious  member  or  by  one 
who  has  more  liberal  views." 

I  took  an  early  opportunity,  therefore,  to  go 
into  the  store  in  the  forenoon,  after  the  women 
had  gone  away.  There  was  no  one  in  when  I 
entered,  but,  at  the  sound  of  my  entrance,  Mr. 
Ledger,  the  storekeeper,  appeared  from  a  room 
behind,  which,  as  I  afterwards  found,  was  the 
reading-room. 

I  told  him  that  people  spoke  to  me  about  the 
Rochdale  system  as  if  of  course  everybody  under 
stood  it,  somewhat  as  people  speak  about  the 
Christian  religion  as  if  everybody  understood  that. 
But  I  said  I  had  found  a  great  many  people  talk 
about  the  Rochdale  system  who  knew  nothing 
about  it,  and  that  I  was  willing  to  confess  that, 
though  I  had  bought  coats  and  hats  and  slippers 
and  portfolios  at  the  co-operative  store  in  London, 
I  did  not  know  why  they  were  cheap,  and  indeed 
I  hardly  knew  why  I  went  there. 

I  found  Mr.  Ledger  was  an  enthusiast  in  the 
matter,  and  was  only  too  glad  to  have  a  hearer  to 
whom  he  could  talk  for  one  of  the  quiet  hours  of 
the  middle  of  the  day,  when  he  hardly  had  any 


284     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

customers.  I  observed  that  there  was  a  boy,  who 
attended  to  the  one  or  two  children  who  did  drop 
in  for  some  trifling  purchase. 

He  said  that  the  idea  of  co-operation  in  the 
purchasing  of  necessary  articles  was,  as  I  knew, 
an  idea  which  had  been  experimented  upon,  no 
body  knew  how  far  back.  "  Nothing  is  easier," 
he  said,  "  than  for  a  dozen  families  to  think  they 
will  buy  their  coal  together  at  wholesale,  will 
divide  it  in  the  quantities  they  want,  and  so  make 
the  profit  which  would  ordinarily  go  to  the  retail 
dealer  who  keeps  a  coalyard.  But  practically,  you 
know  such  schemes  as  that  never  continue  many 
years.  There  are  so  many  conveniences  in  the  coal- 
yard,  that  after  all  you  go  back  to  them,  and 
persuade  yourself  that  the  profit  you  made  was 
not  worth  the  trouble.  I  remember  that  when  I 
lived  in  Boston  I  could  go  down  to  a  certain  point, 
perfectly  well  known,  at  half-past  five  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  I  could  buy  my  fresh  fish  there,  at  the  rate 
of  about  a  cent  and  a  half  a  pound.  But  I  never 
did  go  there.  I  went  to  a  fish  dealer,  who  made 
me  pay  anywhere  between  ten  cents  and  twenty 
cents  a  pound.  I  did  not  want  more  than  five  or 
six  pounds  of  fish,  and  it  was  really  not  worth  the 
while  for  me  to  get  up,  perhaps  before  daylight, 
go  out  to  the  place  where  fish  was  sold  at  whole 
sale,  and  bring  it  back.  In  that  story  is  told  the 
whole  of  the  reason  why  we  pay  so  much  as  we  do 
for  articles  at  retail,  and  why,  on  the  whole,  it  is  an 
advantage  for  us  to  pay  it.  I  suppose  there  is  no 


The  Store  285 

profit  more  fairly  made  than  the  profit  of  the  re 
tailing  middleman,  much  abused  as  he  always  is. 
However,  as  I  said  before,  nobody  can  say  how  far 
back  experiments  of  groups  of  people  buying  to 
please  themselves  have  been  tried.  Sometimes  it 
has  been  tried  successfully  for  a  good  many  years, 
but  nothing  ever  came  of  it. 

"  Now  the  peculiarity  of  the  Rochdale  system, 
which  has  made  it  succeed  and  grow,  is  this.  The 
more  a  man  purchases,  and  the  more  he  can  make 
other  people  purchase,  the  larger  is  his  interest  in 
the  concern,  and  the  larger  his  profit.  If  ten  men 
should  subscribe  five  hundred  dollars  apiece,  to 
make  five  thousand  dollars  capital  with  which  to 
carry  on  this  store,  they  would  have,  of  course,  an 
equal  interest  in  the  profits  of  the  store.  They 
would  try,  as  they  could,  to  induce  as  many  people 
to  come  there  and  trade.  But  there  would  be  only 
these  ten  people  who  had  a  personal  interest  in  the 
success  of  the  store. 

"  If,  on  the  other  hand,  every  person  who  deals 
with  us  is  personally  interested  in  making  the  store 
successful,  why,  every  one  of  them  will  bring  in 
more  customers ;  every  one  of  them  will  buy  with 
us,  rather  than  go  down  to  Wentworth  or  to  New 
Haven  to  buy ;  every  one  of  them  will  advertise  us 
in  whatever  way  he  can.  As  a  matter  of  justice, 
or,  I  think,  as  a  matter  of  religion,  the  people  who 
really  sustain  the  store  by  buying  goods  at  it,  are 
the  people  who  ought  to  make  the  profit  if  there  is 
any  profit  to  be  made.  It  is  exactly  like  a  mutual 


286     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

life  insurance  company,  you  see.  Supposing  the 
year  is  a  healthy  year,  ought  not  the  people  to 
have  the  benefit  whose  lives  are  insured?  or,  if  it 
is  an  unhealthy  year,  ought  they  not  to  pay  for  the 
unhealthiness  ?  Just  in  the  same  way,  if,  for  any 
reason,  the  store  is  a  profitable  store,  I  think,  as  a 
matter  of  Christian  justice,  the  people  who  deal  at 
the  store  ought  to  have  the  advantage.  What  does 
a  profitable  year  mean  ?  It  means  that  the  price 
which  has  been  put  on  the  retail  of  the  goods  was 
rather  higher  than  the  necessities  of  the  business 
demanded.  In  other  words,  the  man  who  bought 
raisins  and  sugar  here  paid  us  rather  more  than  we 
need  have  asked  him.  If  he  paid  us  more,  why 
should  not  we  give  it  back  to  him,  if  we  mean  to 
deal  —  as,  of  course,  we  do  mean  to  deal  —  on 
terms  coming  as  near  to  absolute  justice  as  is 
possible  in  human  affairs? 

"  But  this,  you  will  say,  is  theoretical.  Taking 
the  thing  practically,  here  am  I,  managing  this 
store.  I  was  brought  up  to  this  sort  of  business. 
I  have  owned  a  store,  and  I  have  been  a  clerk  in  a 
store.  To  be  an  owner  means  that  I  have  come 
out  at  the  end  of  the  year  not  knowing  how  I  was 
to  meet  my  notes  in  February.  This  on  the  one 
hand;  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  been  paid  a 
salary,  once  a  week  or  once  a  month,  from  the 
time  when  I  had  three  dollars  a  week  for  sweeping 
out  a  store,  to  the  time  when  I  had  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars  because  I  was  the  best  person 
they  could  employ  at  Pickering  yonder.  Now,  I 


The  Store  287 

am  working  here  on  a  salary.  I  am  one  of  the 
kind  of  men  that  like  to  work  on  a  salary.  Some 
men  do,  and  some  men  don't;  but  after  one  has 
had  the  experience  of  the  ups  and  downs  —  the 
good  fortune  and  the  bad  fortune  —  of  what  is 
called  business  life,  if  he  is  such  a  person  as  I  am 
he  likes  the  regularity  of  a  paid  salary.  A  paid 
salary  I  have  here.  Besides  that,  I  own  some  stock 
in  this  store ;  on  that  stock  I  draw  my  dividends. 
Besides  that,  I  buy  almost  everything  I  need  for 
my  family  here.  I  buy  just  as  any  other  customer 
would  buy,  and,  according  to  the  amount  of  my 
purchases  in  a  year,  I  am  also  entitled  to  a  divi 
dend." 

By  this  time  I  was  a  little  confused,  and  I  said  as 
much  to  Mr.  Ledger.  He  laughed,  and  said  :  — 

"  The  whole  thing  is  so  simple  to  us  that  we  take 
it  for  granted  that  everybody  will  understand  it  at 
the  first  blush.  But  if  you  will  study  the  little  book 
of  directions  of  ours,  and  then  come  in  and  see  me 
to-morrow,  I  will  try  to  make  it  clear  to  you." 

Accordingly  I  took  his  book  of  directions,  which 
I  copy  here  for  the  benefit  of  people  as  little  in 
formed  as  I  was. 

HAMPTON    CO-OPERATIVE   STORE. 

For  the  information  of  members,  of  purchasers,  and  of 
all  concerned,  the  following  statement  is  printed,  copied 
from  distinguished  writers  on  the  subject  of  co-operation. 
It  will  show  the  principles  on  which  the  store  is  con 
ducted. 


288     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Persons  who  wish  more  detailed  information  will  receive 
a  copy  of  the  Regulations  of  the  Store,  by  application  to 
Mr.  Ledger,  at  the  store  itself. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  CO-OPERATIVE  TRADE. 

In  a  properly  constituted  store  the  funds  are  disposed 
of  quarterly  in  seven  ways  :  — 

1.  Rent,  and  expenses  of  management. 

2.  Interest  due  on  all  loans. 

3.  An  amount  equal  to  ten  per  cent  of  the  value  of  the 
fixed  stock,  set  apart  to  cover  its  annual   reduction  in 
value,  owing  to  wear  and  tear. 

4.  Dividends  on  subscribed  capital  of  members. 

5.  Such   sum  as  may  be  required  for  extension  of 
business. 

6.  Two  and  one  half  per  cent  of  the  remaining  profit, 
after  all  the  above  items  are  provided  for,  to  be  applied 
to  educational  purposes. 

7.  The  residue,  and  that  only,  is  then  divided  among 
all  the  persons  employed,  and  members  of  the  store,  in 
proportion  to   the   amount   of  their  wages,   or  of  their 
respective  purchases  during  the  quarter,  varying  from  six 
per  cent  to  ten. 

The  peculiar  distinction  of  a  co-operative  store  is  that 
a  fixed  interest  is  divided  upon  capital,  say  five  per  cent 
upon  the  shares  each  member  holds,  and  then  all  net 
profits  are  divided  to  the  trade  upon  the  business  each 
member  has  done. 

No  credit  is  allowed,  of  any  sort,  to  any  purchaser. 
The  store  buys  for  cash,  and  its  members  have  the 
advantage  for  such  purchase.  It  therefore  sells  for  cash, 
and  for  cash  only. 


The  Store  289 

To  secure  the  necessary  capital  for  making  a  store 
which  shall  meet  the  needs  of  Hampton,  the  first  twenty 
dollars  of  profit  earned  by  any  purchaser  will  be  charged 
to  his  credit,  as  one  share  of  his  capital.  After  he  is 
the  owner  of  one  share  of  capital,  he  will  receive  five  per 
cent  annual  dividend  on  that  share,  and  his  profits  will 
be  paid  to  him  in  cash  at  the  quarterly  settlements. 

The  store  cannot  keep  open  accounts  with  persons 
who  are  not  regular  customers.  Unless  purchases  to  the 
amount  of  one  dollar  are  made  in  each  quarter,  the  pur 
chaser  loses  all  right  to  a  dividend. 

The  prices  of  the  store  will  be  as  low  as  the  best  stores 
in  the  neighborhood.  The  quality  of  goods  will  always 
be  what  it  is  represented.  We  have  no  motive  to  cheat 
ourselves,  and,  as  the  purchasers  are  the  same  persons 
who  sell  the  goods,  we  have  no  motive  to  tell  ourselves 
lies. 

We  spend  nothing  for  advertising.  If  you  wish  to 
increase  the  business  of  the  store,  tell  your  neighbors  the 
truth  about  it,  and  bring  them  to  see. 

RULES  AND  REGULATIONS. 

1.  Every  person  above  the  age  of  14,  residing  in  this 
town,  may  become  a  member  of  the  co-operative  store, 
on  the  payment  of  twenty-five  cents. 

2.  This  money  will  be  placed  to  his  credit 

3.  Each  share   of  the  company  costs  twenty  dollars. 
So  soon  as  members  have  paid  for  one  share,  they  are 
privileged  to  attend  quarterly,  annual,  and  social  meet 
ings.     Members  are  urged  to  complete  the  payment  for 
their  shares  as  soon  as  possible. 

19 


290      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

4.  For  the    amount    of  all   purchases   made   at   one 
time,   the  purchaser,  if  a  member,  will  receive  a  metal 
check,  stamped  with  figures  indicating  the  amount  of  his 
purchase.     He  must  present  these  checks.     They  are  the 
only  vouchers  recognized  for  his  purchases. 

5.  When   he  presents   these   checks,  once  a  quarter, 
the  cashier  will  give  him  a  statement,  made  from  them, 
of  the  amount  of  his  purchases. 

6.  He  is  entitled  to  a  dividend  in  proportion  to  the 
amount   he  has   bought.     Thus,  if  he   has  bought  one 
hundredth  part  of  all  the  shop  has  sold,  he  is  entitled  to 
one  hundredth  part  of  all  its  profits. 

7.  Until  his  first  share  is  paid  for,  his  dividends  are 
passed  to  his  credit,  in  payment  for  that  share.     But  it  is 
a  great  convenience  to  the  store  for  members  to  pay  in 
cash  for  their  first  shares,  at  once. 

8.  On    each   share,   thus   paid   for,    he   will  be   paid 
quarterly  a  dividend  of  one  and  a  quarter  per  cent,  — 
amounting  to  five  per  cent  in  a  year. 

9.  The  receipts  of  the  store  will  be  divided  quarterly, 
after  the  expenses  have  all  been  met,  including  rent,  cost 
of  management,  an   allowance   for   depreciation   of  the 
goods  and  furniture,  and  six  per  cent  interest  on  capital. 
The  residue  will  be  divided  among  the  purchasers. 

10.  Purchasers  who  have  not   become  members  of  the 
society  will  receive  only  half  the  dividend  to  which  they 
would  be  entitled  had  they  joined  the  society.     And  no 
person  will  receive   any  dividend  unless  his   purchases 
have  amounted  to  the  sum  of  one  dollar  at  one  time. 

OFFICERS. 

i.  The   Officers  of  the  society  are  a  President,  five 
Directors,  a  Secretary,  and  a  Treasurer. 


The  Store  291 

2.  They  make  their  own  rules. 

3.  They  appoint  the  Storekeeper  and  his  Clerks. 

4.  They  are  responsible  for  all  purchases,  and  for  the 
careful  management  of  the  property. 

5.  The  books  of  the  society  are  open  to  the  inspec 
tion  of  any  member,  on  the  approval  of  a  majority  of 
the  whole  Board  of  Management. 

The  Quarterly  Meetings  are  held  on  the  afternoon  of 
Tuesday  after  the  second  Monday  of  February,  May, 
August,  and  November.  The  Annual  Meeting  is  held  in 
November,  at  such  a  time  as  may  be  ordered  at  the 
quarterly  meeting  of  that  month. 

And  when  I  left  Hampton,  Mr.  Ledger,  knowing 
that  I  had  some  thoughts  of  establishing  a  co-op 
erative  store  at  Pigotsville,  where  I  had  an  interest, 
gave  me  these  cautions  to  officers,  which  he  had 
digested  from  the  English  writers. 

THE  MANAGEMENT:   OFFICERS  AND  EMPLOYEES,  THEIR 
APPOINTMENT  AND  DUTIES. 

i.  The  Committee  and  Officers.  —  There  is  almost 
always  a  Chairman  and  Secretary,  sometimes  a  Treasurer, 
and  a  varying  number  of  committeemen. 

Election.  —  The  Chairman  or  President  of  the  society 
is  generally  chosen  by  the  members  in  quarterly  meeting, 
sometimes  by  the  committee  from  among  themselves. 
The  Secretary,  if  a  paid  servant,  employed  for  accounts 
and  other  matters  of  business,  will  be,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  most  Co-operators  certainly  ought  to  be,  appointed  or 
dismissed  by  the  committee.  If  the  Secretary  is  only  a 


292     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

minute  secretary  for  committee-meetings,  etc.,  he  will  be 
one  of  the  committee,  and  will  be  appointed  by  them,  or 
might  be  elected,  if  desirable,  in  general  meeting;  and 
in  this  case,  all  the  other  duties  are  undertaken  by  a  paid 
official,  whether  general  manager,  cashier,  or  otherwise. 
The  Treasurer  may  be  chosen  in  either  way.  If  there  is 
no  Treasurer,  the  Secretary  will  discharge  his  duties.  In 
the  opinion  of  some  Co-operators,  a  Treasurer  is  not 
necessary. 

Auditors.  —  It  is  most  important  that  good  men  should 
be  selected.  They  ought  to  remember  what  a  grave  re 
sponsibility  rests  upon  them  in  signing  balance-sheets. 
They  should  be  careful  of  their  own  reputation,  and 
not  run  risks  or  try  to  screen  the  committee.  They 
ought  to  have  a  full  knowledge  of  accounts,  which  is  not 
always  found. 

Payment.  —  In  most  societies  committeemen  are  paid 
for  their  attendance  at  the  weekly  committee  ;  but  it  is 
most  desirable,  in  fixing  the  scale  of  payment,  to  avoid 
the  likelihood  of  men  trying  to  get  on  to  the  committee 
simply  for  the  sake  of  the  fees.  This  is  a  danger  to  be 
carefully  watched  in  the  co-operative  movement.  The 
work  of  its  managing  men  (not  its  paid  officials,  to  whom 
it  is  a  profession)  should  be  that  of  volunteers,  who  are 
repaid  in  moderation  for  their  expense  of  time  and 
trouble,  and  who  will  withdraw  or  resign  their  position  at 
once,  without  a  moment's  hesitation  on  the  score  of 
money,  if  that  is  being  done  of  which  they  so  strongly 
disapprove  that  they  believe  this  to  be  the  right  course ; 
otherwise  they  are  not  independent,  and  may  tend  to  get 
into  the  hands  of  men  more  powerful  than  themselves, 
who  are  well  aware  they  will  not  resign  if  they  can  possibly 
help  it. 


The  Store  293 

The  Secretary  may  receive  some  additional  fee  for  his 
clerical  labors. 

Sub -committees.  —  In  most  societies  there  are  sub 
committees  to  give  special  attention  to  the  various  de 
partments  of  the  society  work,  —  one  for  groceries, 
another  for  bakery,  another  for  butchery,  etc.  In  the 
earlier  stages  of  a  society  it  may  not  be  desirable,  but 
later  on  it  becomes  almost  a  necessity.  As  a  rule,  work- 
ingmen  committees  have  only  the  evenings  free,  and  the 
whole  committee  could  not  possibly  all  of  them  go  into 
the  matters  requiring  attention.  Subdivision  of  the  work 
is  necessary. 

Duties  of  Committeemen  and  Officers.  —  The  Chairman 
should  have  firmness,  impartiality,  coolness,  keenness,  and 
tact.  It  is  no  good  having  a  Chairman,  however  virtuous, 
good-natured,  or  consistent,  if  he  cannot  keep  a  meeting 
in  order.  The  Secretary  should  be  able  to  work  hard 
and  continuously,  must  be  well  up  in  figures,  and  must 
write  well  and  quickly.  A  bad  Secretary  can  bring  a 
society  to  grief  very  quickly.  He  ought  not  to  try  to 
dictate  to  the  committee,  and,  whatever  his  own  opinions, 
ought  loyally  to  carry  out  their  decisions.  In  a  commit 
tee  there  are  always  likely  to  rise  up  rival  parties.  This 
ought  to  be  avoided  as  far  as  possible.  A  member  should 
firmly  state  his  opinion,  and  accept  a  defeat  with  good 
temper,  or,  if  the  matter  is  serious,  resign.  He  ought  to 
feel  himself  free  to  resign,  if  necessary,  as  has  been  men 
tioned  before.  Party  spirit  on  a  committee  is  to  be 
deplored.  The  members  should  not  send  hot-headed 
firebrands  into  office.  They  should  send  steady-going, 
able  men,  who  have  a  capacity  for  patient,  persistent 
enthusiasm  that  commands  success  and  is  not  afraid  of 
difficulties.  The  committee  should  aim  at  keeping  the 


294     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

confidence  of  their  members  ;  should  remember  that  the 
constitution  of  the  society  is  republican ;  should  not 
mind  criticism,  but  welcome  it.  It  should  be  considered 
a  golden  rule  that  the  committee  should  never  unneces 
sarily  keep  anything  back  from  the  members,  unless  its 
being  known  is  likely  to  be  injurious  to  the  society. 
Committees  should  desire  publicity  and  criticism  of  any 
kind  within  reasonable  limits.  They  should  not  be  thin- 
skinned,  or  make  too  frequent  appeals  to  the  forbearance 
of  members.  Members  ought  to  have  the  moving  power 
in  as  many  matters  as  possible,  and  this  power  should  not 
be  taken  from  them. 

Publicity  and  frank  and  full  discussion  of  all  matters 
concerning  the  welfare  of  a  society  are  essential  to  its 
well-being.  Many  a  society  has  come  to  a  bad  end 
through  the  want  of  this.  The  committee  should  never 
be  jealous  of  rising  talent  among  the  members.  There 
are  plenty  of  outlets  for  activity ;  and,  perhaps  more  than 
anything  else,  what  is  needed  now  is  that  committees  should 
encourage  young  members  to  be  personally  interested 
in  the  fuller  and  higher  development  of  Co-operation 
in  many  different  ways.  A  great  deal  can  be  done  in  the 
way  of  training  up  good  and  loyal  members  and  active 
and  efficient  officers  in  a  society  where  a  good  spirit 
prevails,  and  where  the  best  men  have  an  influence  such 
as  they  deserve. 

Servants  of  the  Society.  —  All  servants  of  the  society 
are  almost  invariably  appointed  and  dismissed  by  the 
committee. 

The  Manager.  —  Upon  the  question  what  kind  of  per 
son  is  the  storekeeper,  manager,  or  buyer,  depends,  to 
a  very  large  extent,  the  success  or  failure  of  the  society. 
Is  he  to  be  the  master  or  the  servant  of  the  committee  ? 


The  Store  295 

What  is  to  be  the  relation  between  them  ?  A  manager 
has  great  opportunities  of  influence  through  much  inter 
course  with  the  members,  and  he  can  use  it  well  or  badly. 
Many  managers  of  co-operative  stores  are  first-rate  men, 
and  zealous  Co-operators.  Yet  there  are  great  tempta 
tions  to  managers  to  aim  at  personal  power  rather  than 
the  general  welfare  of  the  society. 

Checks  on  Managers.  —  Some  societies  are  content 
with  a  guarantee  or  deposit  similar  to  that  demanded 
from  the  Secretary  or  Treasurer.  Such  a  guarantee  merely 
provides  against  certain  kinds  of  dishonesty.  It  does 
not  provide  against  waste. 

(a)  The  English  shops  have  advanced  so  far  in  their 
system  that  they  provide  for  what  they  call  Leakage  Bonds. 
To  aim  at  lessening  waste  and  preventing  possible  fraud, 
many  societies  arrange  for  a  leakage  bond  or  agreement, 
to  be  signed  by  the  manager.     In  this  he  binds  himself 
to  return  as  much  money  as  is  equal  to  the  value  of  the 
goods  intrusted  to  him,  subject  to  a  deduction  for  leakage 
(i.  e.t  waste  and  loss  in  weighing  out).     Opinions  differ  as 
to  the  leakage  allowable,  and  it  depends  partly  on  how 
the  accounts  are  made  up ;  id  or  $d  in  the  pound  is  a 
very  ordinary  average  allowance. 

(b)  Check  Systems.  —  There  are  many  ways  in  which 
a  fraudulent  manager  or  shopkeeper  can  cheat  a  society, 
and  no  methods   can   obviate   this   altogether.     At  the 
same  time  it  is  very  important  that  in  order  to  remove 
temptation,  and  keep  the  business  up  to  the  mark,  there 
should  be  a  check  system,  with  a  view  to  seeing  how 
much  cash  really  passes  through  the  manager's  hands. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  the  mere  having  of  checks 
or  tokens,  metal  or  otherwise,  as  explained  before,  to 
enable  members  to  claim  their  dividends  at  the  end  of 


296     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

the  quarter,  is  not  a  check  system  in  the  sense  of  being  a 
check  upon  managers  and  shopmen.  You  may  or  must 
have  checks,  as  they  are  called,  to  give  to  members ;  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  you  have  any  check  on  your  man 
ager,  or  that  the  committee  know  whether  they  get  all 
the  cash  which  is  paid  over  the  counter.  For  instance, 
non-members  who  know  nothing  about  the  dividend  may 
come  in,  (but  add)  pay,  and  go  away  without  any  check, 
the  shopman  pocketing  the  money  and  not  being  found 
out.  It  has  been  found  also  that  with  the  metal  checks 
employees  may  pilfer  the  checks,  and  their  friends  bring 
them  in  and  claim  dividends  at  the  end  of  the  quarter. 
With  the  paper  checks,  one  being  given  for  every  sale, 
there  is  some  security,  but  even  this  has  not  always 
worked  well. 

In  large  stores,  the  method  of  the  shopmen  giving  the 
customer  a  ticket,  who  takes  it  to  a  boy,  who  gives  metal 
checks  in  exchange  and  registers  each  shopman's  sales, 
has  been  found  fairly  satisfactory.  For  the  whole  subject, 
which  is  a  difficult  one,  see  "  Manual  of  Checks,"  published 
by  the  Central  Board.  Apparently,  the  ideal  check  system 
has  yet  to  be  discovered.  Still,  it  may  be  said  generally 
that  a  good  committee  can  soon  find  out  if  a  manager  is 
doing  really  well  or  not,  and  that,  as  in  so  many  other 
matters  of  management,  the  only  thing  to  be  done  may 
be  to  say  to  a  manager,  "  We  do  not  charge  you  with 
dishonesty,  but  simply  with  want  of  managing  power. 
Experience  shows  every  day  in  every  kind  of  business, 
that,  of  two  men  with  the  best  intentions,  one  can  make 
a  good  profit  and  the  other  will  make  a  serious  loss.  We 
have  given  you  a  good  trial,  and  tried  to  help  you.  We 
propose  to  part  with  you  and  take  another  manager." 

The  Employees.  —  The  shopmen,  baker's  men  with  the 


The  Store  297 

cart,  and  others  employed  by  the  store,  will  be  appointed 
by  the  committee,  who,  if  they  are  wise,  will  give  their 
managers  and  branch  managers  a  good  deal  of  power  in 
this  matter.  Get  good  managers,  and  trust  them  in  minor 
matters ;  give  them  power  over  those  below  them,  if  you 
think  they  will  use  it  well;  and  while  always  willing  to 
investigate  complaints,  show  the  employees  that  you  do 
trust  your  manager.  If  the  committee  as  individuals 
listen  to  the  complaints  of  shopmen,  clerks,  and  others, 
they  may  do  a  great  deal  of  harm.  Branch  managers 
should  be  made  as  far  as  possible  responsible  for  what 
goes  on  at  the  branches,  and,  if  possible,  should  have  a 
pecuniary  interest  in  the  success  of  the  branch. 

Bonus  to  Employees.  —  Many  societies  have  begun  this 
plan,  and  under  pressure  from  their  members  have  given 
it  up.  It  may  fairly  be  said  that,  if  Co-operators  believe 
in  the  principle  of  workmen  having  a  pecuniary  interest  in 
their  work,  they  ought  to  apply  it  to  the  shopmen  in  their 
shops.  Many  Co-operators  show  by  their  votes  in  meet 
ings  and  by  their  practice  that  they  do  not  believe  in  this 
principle.  On  the  other  hand,  many  do.  Some  com- 
mitteemen  would  gladly  apply  the  principle  if  they  could 
prove  to  their  members  that  a  real  saving  is  effected  by 
it.  If  it  is  to  be  conceded  as  an  abstract  principle  of 
justice,  not  many  societies  will  carry  it  on  that  ground. 
It  is  worth  considering,  whether  the  plan  which  has  been 
tried  in  some  societies,  of  giving  a  bonus  on  wages,  at  the 
same  rate  as  the  dividend  declared,  e.g.,  is.  6d.  to  $s.  in 
the  pound,  according  to  the  success  of  trade  in  each 
quarter,  is  not  a  mistake,  except  in  very  small  stores. 
Rather  it  would  seem  that  each  small  group  of  employees 
should  be  made  to  feel  a  direct  personal  interest  in  the 
part  or  branch  in  which  they  are  engaged.  Then  they 


298      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

have  much  more  chance  of  getting  something  by  their 
efforts  than  they  have  as  individuals  of  raising  the  general 
dividend  for  the  whole  store  \d.  or  2.d.  in  the  pound,  which 
will  bring  them  but  little  after  all.  Where  departmental 
accounts  are  kept,  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult.  If  so 
cieties  and  committees  would  turn  their  attention  more 
fully  to  this  subject,  and  not  listen  to  isolated  instances  of 
failure,  it  is  probable  they  would  find  that  there  is  a  good 
deal  more  in  this  matter  of  profit-sharing  by  employees 
than  has  yet  been  found  out.  The  number  of  employees 
employed  in  distributive  work  in  stores  is  about  13,000. 
Almost  all  societies  close  the  store  for  one  half-holiday 
in  the  week,  generally  not  on  Saturdays.  In  addition  to 
this  unusual  privilege,  the  hours  of  labor  are  usually  con 
siderably  less  than  the  hours  in  private  shops.  The  Sat 
urday  half-holiday  for  shops  was  largely  inaugurated  by 
Co-operators.  They  felt  that  shop-keepers  had  as  much 
right  to  the  holiday  as  they  had.  For  rules  for  shopmen, 
see  a  useful  paper  at  the  end  of  "  Model  Book-keeping." 

Average  Working  Expenses.  —  These  vary  a  good  deal : 
in  some  stores,  they  are  as  high  as  seven  and  one  half  per 
cent  or  more,  in  some  below  five  per  cent ;  but  a  great 
deal  depends  on  local  circumstances.  It  is  impossible  to 
lay  down  a  rule.  Inquiries  should  be  made  of  societies 
in  similar  circumstances. 

Stock-taking.  —  Quarterly  stock-taking  (or  half-yearly, 
where  the  accounts  are  only  made  up  and  dividends  de 
clared  half-yearly)  is  a  most  important  matter,  and  it  may 
become  a  fruitful  source,  not  only  of  error  but  of  fraud. 
It  must  be  done  on  a  systematic  principle,  and  the  mem 
bers  of  committees  should  personally  superintend  it. 
Stock  ought  to  be  taken  at  cost  price>  unless  the  goods 
are  deteriorated,  or  the  market  value  has  gone  down.  In 


The  Store  299 

that  case,  they  should  be  taken  at  what  they  would  cost 
to  buy  at  the  time  stock  is  taken.  In  no  case  ought 
goods  to  be  put  at  more  than  cost  price.  To  do  so  is  to 
appropriate  the  profits  before  the  work  of  selling  has  been 
done,  and  the  expense  of  selling  provided  for. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ENTERPRISER 

I  ASKED  Mr.  Spinner  one  day,  with  a  good 
deal  of  curiosity,  in  what  consisted  the  dif 
ference  between  their  plan  and  other  arrange 
ments  of  co-operative  workmen.  I  had  always 
been  taught,  at  college,  and  by  the  superficial 
writers  on  modern  social  order,  that,  while  dif 
ferent  nations  had  had  different  forms  of  success 
in  Co-operation,  no  one  could  yet  claim  that  suc 
cess  in  co-operative  manufacture  which  he  felt  sure 
the  Hampton  plan  had  secured. 

It  is  generally  said  that  the  co-operative  system 
of  house-owning  which  in  America  is  called  the 
Philadelphia  system,  by  which  a  Philadelphia  work 
man  comes  to  own  the  house  he  lives  in,  is  peculiar 
to  America. 

It  is  generally  said  that  the  co-operative  system 
of  savings-banks,  —  as  it  was  discussed  by  Mr. 
Scheffer,  —  in  which  the  small  depositors  are 
themselves  the  capitalists  who  lend  to  the  small 
borrowers,  is  a  system  peculiar  to  Germany. 

It  is  said  also  that  the  Rochdale  system,  the 
system  of  co-operative  buying  and  selling,  as  it 
has  been  described  in  the  chapter  above,  called 


The  Enterpriser  301 

"The  Store,"  has  succeeded  in  England,  and 
nowhere  else.  And  it  is  popularly  said  by  the 
general  writers  on  this  subject  that  co-operative 
experiments  in  manufacturing  have  been  short 
lived,  or  have  been  on  too  small  a  scale  to  be  of 
much  account  in  the  great  exigencies  of  modern 
commerce. 

Mr.  Spinner  replied  by  saying  that  there  are  a 
good  many  large  exceptions  to  the  statement  that 
co-operative  industry  has  not  succeeded  on  a  large 
scale.  The  fishing  industry  in  Great  Britain,  in 
France,  and  in  America,  has  always  been  con 
ducted  on  this  principle.  The  men  who  go  on  the 
voyage  divide  the  profits  of  the  voyage  by  a  scale 
determined  long  ago,  —  in  which  the  master's  rate 
differs  from  the  mate's,  his  from  the  expert  sea 
men,  and  his  from  the  novice  or  the  boy.  The 
great  cheese  factories  of  the  dairy  towns  are  con 
ducted  very  largely  on  this  principle.  The  farmer 
who  sends  in  only  a  gallon  of  milk  a  day  is  a 
shareholder  in  the  enterprise  of  the  year,  and  re 
ceives  his  proportional  dividend  as  regularly  as  if 
he  furnished  half  the  milk  needed  for  the  enter 
prise.  The  difficulty  comes,  unquestionably, — 
this  was  Mr.  Spinner's  theory,  —  when  the  kind  of 
manufacturing  is  such  as  to  require  a  large  invest 
ment  of  capital.  In  the  cheese  factory  the  raw 
material  is  the  principal  charge.  In  the  fisheries 
the  daily  labor  is  the  principal  charge.  But  the 
factory  requires  a  much  larger  plant,  in  proportion, 
than  either  fishery  or  cheese  factory. 


302     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

This  difficulty  had  been  met  by  the  Co-operators 
at  Hampton  when  they  agreed  with  Mr.  Nourse  to 
pay  him  a  regular  interest  on  the  capital  he  fur 
nished  for  this  purpose. 

But  even  then  the  Co-operators  in  manufacture 
meet  a  second  difficulty.  They  are  trained  to 
make  goods.  But  they  may  make  as  well  as 
Aladdin's  genii,  —  and  this  will  be  of  no  use,  if 
they  cannot  sell.  More  than  this,  —  it  is  of  no  use 
to  make  well  unless  you  can  buy  the  material 
cheaply  and  to  advantage.  It  is  clear  enough  that 
a  man  who  is  weaving  cloth  cannot  be  buying 
wool,  —  perhaps  a  thousand  miles  away,  —  nor 
selling  cloth,  after  it  is  made.  The  workman  who 
spins  and  weaves  and  dyes  is  another  person,  in 
another  business,  from  the  manager  who  has  to 
buy  wool  in  one  market  and  to  sell  cloth  in  an 
other.  And,  if  the  workman  has  to  be  dependent 
upon  some  commission  merchant  who  undertakes 
for  him  either  of  these  duties  or  both,  he  is  in  as 
uncomfortable  a  position  as  when  he  was  de 
pendent  upon  the  capitalist.  In  practice,  in  the 
ordinary  system,  the  capitalist  undertakes  this  mid 
dleman's  affair.  He  buys  the  wool,  and  sells  the 
cloth,  —  if  the  enterprise  is  like  that  at  Hampton. 

But  there  is  no  reason,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
why  a  capitalist  should  know  how  to  buy  wool  or 
sell  cloth  any  better  than  the  weaver  or  spinner. 
It  is  a  business  wholly  distinct  from  the  business  of 
lending  money.  And,  in  point  of  fact,  the  failures 
of  manufacturers  come  in  quite  as  often  because 


The  Enterpriser  303 

the  men  who  have  this  part  in  charge  do  not  carry 
on  their  business  well,  as  because  the  goods  are 
not  up  to  their  standard  when  the  workmen  have 
failed  in  their  duty. 

"  It  is  here,"  said  Mr.  Spinner,  "  that  you  find  the 
distinctive  part  of  our  system.  Nourse  furnishes 
the  money.  We  pay  him  for  it,  —  as  we  would 
pay  any  bank  for  money  which  we  needed.  The 
workmen  make  the  goods.  We  pay  them  for  their 
day's  work,  exactly  as  you  would  pay  the  painter 
who  painted  your  house.  But  thirdly,  we  make  a 
separate  business  of  contriving  the  work,  determin 
ing  on  the  patterns  and  plans,  buying  the  material, 
selling  the  goods. 

"  This  is  not  the  affair  of  the  workman.  He 
does  not  know  how. 

"  It  is  not  the  affair  of  the  capitalist.  He  does 
not  know  how. 

"  In  our  plan  it  devolves  on  Mr.  Workman  and 
myself.  We  think  we  know  how.  We  try  to 
learn  how.  And  the  whole  thing  will  go  to 
destruction  if  we  do  not  know  how.  In  point 
of  historical  fact,  there  would  be  no  mill  here 
on  this  basis  if  we  had  not  made  the  negotiation 
with  Mr.  Nourse,  and  made  him  believe  it  possible. 
The  old  workmen  and  their  wives  know  this ;  and 
the  hands  generally  understand  it.  In  practice 
it  is  so  clear  that  '  managing/  —  buying,  selling, 
contriving,  —  are  different  operations  from  spin 
ning,  weaving,  and  dyeing,  that  the  thing  explains 
itself,  so  soon  as  men  look  into  it. 


304     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

"  Very  well.  As  I  explained  to  you,  we  are 
recognized  as  interested  to  the  amount  of  one 
third  on  the  success  of  the  concern.  That  is  a 
rough  average,  probably  not  quite  accurate,  but 
nearly  so,  —  and  convenient.  We  are  paid  living 
wages,  —  as  if  we  were  foreman  of  rooms,  perhaps, 
head-dyers,  or  whatever.  But,  when  the  yearly 
balance  is  made  up,  whatever  the  profit  is,  Nourse 
receives  one  third  of  that  profit,  the  workmen 
receive  a  third,  —  just  in  proportion  to  their  wages, 

—  and  we  receive  a  third.     If  we  were  paid  in 
proportion  to  our  wages  only,  we  should  not  re 
ceive  so  much.     But  you  see,  that  is  as  broad  as  it 
is  long.     If  we  were  not  to  have  this  fixed  share, 

—  one    third    of  the    profit,  —  we    should    never 
undertake   the   management  of  the   affair.     Why 
should  we  ?     I  am  as  good  a  master-weaver  as  the 
head  of  either  of  our  weaving-rooms.     Why  should 
I    undertake  all   this   business  of  buying,  selling, 
planning,  and  in  general  ordering,  if  I  am  not  to 
be  paid  for  it?" 

Thus  Mr.  Spinner  made  me  understand  that 
the  failure  of  most  co-operative  enterprises  has 
resulted  from  the  badness  of  the  general  manage 
ment.  This  has  resulted  from  the  unwillingness 
to  pay  the  general  manager.  The  natural  sugges 
tion  is  that  capital  shall  have  half  the  profit  and 
the  workingman  half.  This  is  not  founded  on  any 
fixed  law,  but  it  seems  to  be  a  convenient  and  easy 
division.  It  does  not  work.  The  reason  is  that 
there  is  a  third  and  wholly  distinct  business  in- 


The  Enterpriser  305 

volved.  This  is  management.  It  means  buying 
and  selling,  planning,  directing,  selecting,  enlarging 
work  or  reducing  it.  It  requires  a  different  train 
ing  and  a  different  use  of  time  from  the  others. 

Spinner  showed  me  figures  which  he  had  drawn 
out  very  carefully  from  the  books  of  some  of  the 
largest  American  establishments  and  from  those  of 
some  of  the  smallest.  He  had  drawn  them  off 
very  carefully  in  tables.  They  showed  what  pro 
portion  of  the  gross  earnings  of  these  mills,  year 
in  and  out,  went  for  the  workmen,  what  proportion 
went  for  material,  what  proportion  went  for  the 
profits  of  the  owners,  and  what  was  the  interest  on 
the  capital  at  the  market  rates  for  the  year.  Of 
course,  one  year  varied  from  another.  One  figure 
was  up  and  another  down,  as  the  market  for  wool 
varied,  or  that  for  cloth,  or  that  for  money,  or  that 
for  work.  But,  on  the  whole,  in  the  average,  it 
was  curious  to  see  that  his  rough  division  into 
thirds  came  out  about  fairly.  To  give  to  handi 
work  one  third  the  profit,  to  management  one 
third,  and  to  capital  one  third,  after  each  had  been 
paid  the  minimum  of  its  living  rate,  was  evidently 
an  arrangement  almost  exactly  just.  One  year 
with  another,  you  could  hardly  do  better. 

"  In  a  word,"  he  said  to  me  once  and  again, 
"  co-operative  enterprises  generally  fail  because 
they  do  not  pay  the  management." 

I  said  to  him  one  day,  that  he  had  made  this 
sufficiently  clear  to  me.  Most  business  men 

20 


306     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

would  accept  the  statement  as  quite  central,  that 
the  managers  of  an  enterprise  must  be  well  paid  or 
they  will  fail.  Authors,  for  instance,  do  not  find  it 
well  to  print  and  sell  their  own  books.  They  find 
it  better  to  write  them,  and  delegate  the  printing 
and  sale  of  them  to  other  men  who  make  that  their 
business.  The  money  which  the  author  receives 
for  his  part  of  the  work  is  pretty  generally  agreed 
upon.  In  America,  it  is  ordinarily  ten  per  cent  of 
the  gross  sales  at  retail  prices.  The  profit  of  the 
retail  dealer  is  also  generally  agreed  upon.  It  is 
forty  per  cent  of  the  retail  prices  of  the  books  he 
sells.  There  is  left,  then,  to  'the  wholesale  pub 
lisher,  the  printer  and  the  binder,  to  the  freight 
companies  which  carry  the  book  from  place  to 
place,  and  to  the  newspapers  and  magazines  which 
advertise  it,  fifty  per  cent  of  the  gross  sales.  This 
rough  statement  shows  that  in  the  business  of  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  books  a  very  large  part  of 
any  profit  is  paid  to  management.  The  propor 
tion  will  differ,  of  course,  in  different  sorts  of  ad 
venture.  If  I  manufacture  plain  sheetings,  I  make 
an  article  for  which  there  is  a  steady  demand. 
The  risk  of  putting  it  on  the  market  is  less  than  if 
it  were  a  volume  of  sonnets  or  a  novel.  But,  on 
the  whole,  men  find  that  it  is  better  to  intrust  the 
sale  of  their  work  to  people  who  are  used  to  that 
business,  and  to  pay  them  well  for  it.  An  author 
may  print  his  own  book,  or  pay  the  printer  for 
doing  so.  But  he  will  be  apt  to  have  a  very  large 
pile  of  his  own  books  in  his  own  attic  or  cellar. 


The  Enterpriser  307 

In  the  long  run,  he  will  find  it  best  to  pay  for  the 
oversight  of  publishing. 

I  said  to  Mr.  Spinner  that  I  could  well  see  that 
men  acquainted  with  general  business  should 
recognize  the  truth  of  his  maxim,  that  you  must 
pay  well  for  management.  But  I  said  I  should 
not  think  that  when  the  day  for  the  dividend  came 
the  workmen  would  like  it.  I  should  think  they 
would  be  jealous  of  that  part  of  the  plan. 

He  replied  rather  grimly,  as  if  I  had  hit  a  spot 
which  it  was  disagreeable  to  him  to  talk  about. 
I  have  observed  that  visitors  who  are  not  quite  at 
home  with  their  hosts  are  a  little  apt  to  bring  up 
the  most  delicate  questions,  as  if  the  solution  could 
be  given  in  an  epigram.  Thus,  in  old  times,  an 
English  traveller  would  ask  a  Southern  planter  if 
he  thought  the  system  of  slavery  abstractly  just; 
and  an  American  clergyman  to-day  will  ask  an 
English  bishop  why  he  does  not  prevent  the  sale 
of  clerical  preferments.  In  somewhat  this  way  — 
inopportune,  I  will  confess  —  I  asked  Mr.  Spinner 
whether  the  work-people  liked  the  arrangement  by 
which  "  Management "  took  one  third  of  the  profit. 
I  saw  in  a  moment  that  it  was  a  matter  a  good 
deal  discussed,  and  that  the  renewal  of  the  discus 
sion  with  a  novice  annoyed  him.  I  could  not  help 
that,  however,  and,  in  truth,  I  did  not  much  care. 
I  was  there,  not  to  entertain  him,  but  to  find,  if  I 
could,  what  was  their  solution  of  the  problems  of 
capital  and  the  industry  it  needed,  —  or,  if  you 
please,  of  industry  and  the  capital  it  needed.  Mr. 


308     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Spinner  had  said,  again  and  again,  that  the  essen 
tial  part  of  their  system  was  the  distinct  recogni 
tion  of  the  value  of  the  management.  I  did  not 
understand  the  system,  —  that  was  very  clear,  — 
until  I  knew  whether  the  workmen  liked  the  theory 
as  well  as  he  did,  who  was  himself  a  manager. 

His  mere  manner  was  enough  to  show  that  this 
was  familiar  ground  to  him,  which  he  had  had  to 
go  over  till  he  was  tired,  with  every  new  inquirer. 
Very  well;  I  could  not  help  that.  Of  course  it 
was  to  be  often  explained,  if  it  was  the  distinctive 
part  of  their  system. 

He  asked  pardon,  however,  for  the  annoyance  on 
his  face,  which  he  saw  that  I  observed.  Then  he 
really  laughed  at  himself.  "  It  is  ground  so  famil 
iar  to  me,"  he  said,  "  that  I  forget  that  it  is  new  to 
others,  —  as  the  ticket-master  forgets  that  the 
woman  who  asks  him  questions  to-day  is  not  the 
same  woman  who  asked  them  yesterday. 

"  I  do  not  think  the  '  old  men,'  as  we  call  them, 
though  most  of  them  are  not  forty,  ever  have  any 
question  about  this  part  of  the  plan.  Indeed,  they 
know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  it  is  essential.  They 
know  that  none  of  them  or  any  of  us  would  be 
here,  unless  the  managers  had  laid  out  the  system. 
As  I  said,  they  know,  as  a  fact  in  history,  that 
Workman  and  I  persuaded  Nourse  to  come  into 
the  plan.  They  know,  also,  that  we  are  the  people 
whom  he  looks  to,  —  that  he  deals  with  us  as  far 
as  there  is  any  dealing  between  him  and  the  con 
cern,  —  so  that  we  are  a  necessity.  What  is  more, 


The  Enterpriser  309 

however,  they  know  that,  in  fact,  the  thing  works 
well,  —  that  they  receive,  on  the  whole,  much 
higher  wages  than  they  ever  had  before  they  came 
here,  —  that  the  work  of  the  mill  is  better  than  it 
was  in  old  times,  and  the  reputation  of  our  goods 
higher  in  the  market.  They  know  that  we  work 
with  less  waste  and  more  profit,  because  we  are 
working  on  this  general  plan.  So  far,  good.  And 
so  far  as  those  who  began  with  us  go,  there  is 
never  any  discussion. 

"  But  you  are  quite  right  in  thinking  that  new 
comers,  who  have  not  worked  with  us  long,  in 
variably  question  this  part  of  our  arrangement  at 
first.  They  say  that  Workman  and  I  have  the 
lion's  share.  The  boys  caricature  us  sometimes, 
well;  even  the  older  ones  will  fling  at  us  in  the 
club  meetings  and  other  discussions.  Of  course 
there  have  been  a  thousand  other  plans  proposed. 
Of  course,  any  hand  new  at  the  bellows  thinks  he 
can  blow  better  than  the  old  hand  did,  and  makes 
his  new  suggestion.  It  generally  amounts  to  this, 
of  course,  —  that  a  considerable  sum  would  be 
saved  to  the  workmen  themselves  if  a  committee 
of  management  of  their  own  superintended  the 
work,  as  Workman  and  I  do  now,  —  if  a  fixed  al 
lowance  were  made  to  them  for  their  compensa 
tion,  and  then  the  whole  profit  were  divided  in 
proportion  to  the  wages.  I  do  not  see  that  they 
are  apt  to  wish  to  increase  Nourse's  share. 

"  But  I  ask  nothing  better  than  that  a  critic  shall 
have  to  put  his  plan  on  paper,  and  make  it  populai 


310     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

with  the  rest.  Observe,  there  is  no  annual  meet 
ing  where  it  can  be  proposed  as  a  practical  scheme. 
Every  one  knows  that  these  works  are  not  run  by 
caucus  or  in  town-meeting.  No  one  is  here  long 
who  does  not  like  to  be  here.  And,  unless  the 
man  likes  to  come,  and  take  wages  at  our  rates,  he 
does  not  come.  Still  the  whole  scheme  is  certainly 
democratic,  and  rests  on  the  substantial  satisfaction 
of  everybody.  Naturally,  it  attracts  more  than  an 
average  share  of  theorizers  or  schemers.  So  that 
in  any  debating-club,  as  at  the  Union,  it  is  very 
likely  that  an  Ideal  Plan  for  its  improvement  shall 
be  brought  forward.  And  in  this  country,  particu 
larly  when  times  are  bad,  there  will  be  a  plenty  of 
broken-winded  flannel  mills,  or  other  concerns 
which  have  shut  down,  where  the  owners  are  open 
to  offers  to  buy  cheap.  There  was  a  young  man 
here,  named  Crichton,  who  wanted  to  persuade 
some  of  the  other  young  fellows  to  go  up  to  Eden, 
twenty  miles  up  the  river,  with  him,  and  work  out 
a  plan  he  had.  So,  in  one  way  or  another,  we 
have  had  plenty  of  plans  for  improving  on  our 
method  of  sharing. 

"  This  is  the  reason  why  I  say  so  confidently 
that  the  making  an  equal  allowance  to  '  Manage 
ment'  has  proved  necessary,  —  I  mean  an  allow 
ance  of  profit,  equal  to  that  assigned  to  Work  and 
to  Capital.  It  has  proved  necessary,  because  so 
many  of  these  other  plans  have  been  proved  in 
efficient.  The  men  will  not  trust  themselves  and 
their  families  to  an  annual  caucus.  They  will  not 


The  Enterpriser  311 

go  into  a  scheme  which  may  be  over-set  in  a 
minute.  And  capital  will  not  trust  itself,  unless 
there  is  somebody  to  trust  itself  to.  Theo.  Brown 
used  to  say  that  when  you  made  a  stocking,  you 
could  not  '  make  believe '  round  once,  and  then 
knit  into  the  '  make  believe.'  There  must  be 
something  to  knit  into.  In  practice,  there  must 
be  a  management,  which  may  contract  with  the 
men  and  compact  with  the  property  owner." 

I  said  that  it  was  the  fate  of  middlemen  to  be 
unpopular.  Spinner  said  that  I  need  not  tell  him 
that.  But  he  said  that  that  was  one  thing  which 
they  were  for;  that  some  one  must  stand  the 
brunt ;  and  that,  if  he  and  Workman  were  honest 
and  impartial,  and  carried  open  accounts,  which 
every  one  might  see,  he  would  risk  any  unpopu 
larity. 

"  In  truth,"  he  said,  "  with  every  year  there  is 
less  and  less  of  such  complaining  or  such  criticism 
as  you  inquire  about.  The  scheme  rests  on  its 
substantial  justice.  When  you  buy  apiece  of  meat 
in  the  market,  or  hire  a  cab  at  the  Forty-Second 
Street  Station,  you  do  not  complain  because  the 
butcher  makes  a  profit,  or  the  cab-driver.  You 
do  not  suppose  that  either  of  them  is  there  as  a 
philanthropist,  and  you  do  not  suggest  to  them 
that  they  shall  send  you  a  check  on  Christmas 
Day,  with  your  share  of  the  profits  of  the  year. 
You  recognize  butchering  and  cab-driving  as  a 
different  business  from  your  business,  and  do  not 
ask  to  share  the  cab-driver's  profits,  more  than 


312     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

you  expect  him  to  share  yours.  You  do  share 
profits  in  a  Mutual  Insurance  Company,  for  there 
you  are  all  in  the  same  enterprise,  and  you  succeed 
or  fail  under  the  same  laws.  And  so,  in  the  spin 
ning  and  weaving,  we  are  all  in  the  same  business, 
and  gain  or  lose  by  the  same  laws.  But,  as  I  said 
in  the  beginning,  two  things  are  sure :  (i)  Manage 
ment  is  a  separate  profession,  which  must  be  well 
paid;  and  (2)  Management  involves  permanence, 
or  there  will  be  no  confidence  or  security. 

"  I  have  told  you,"  said  he,  "  of  the  criticisms. 
Now  let  me  tell  you  a  story  on  the  other  side. 
When,  in  October  two  years  since,  the  money 
market  tightened  up  as  it  did,  half  a  dozen  large 
mill-owners  chose  to  fail,  and  there  was  what  you 
might  call  a  special  panic  in  the  trade  in  woollens, 
besides  the  general  panic  on  Wall  Street,  which  is 
apt  to  come  round  in  the  autumn.  As  it  hap 
pened,  we  were  carrying  an  unusually  large  stock 
of  goods,  which  I  did  not  choose  to  sacrifice  at  a 
time  when  the  market  was  badly  depressed.  But 
we  wanted  money,  —  we  wanted  it  badly.  In 
ordinary  times,  I  could  have  had  it  for  the  asking, 
at  one  of  the  three  or  four  banks  where  they  knew 
our  paper.  But  they  would  not  look  at  me  then, 
and,  —  well,  I  do  not  like  to  go  to  note-shavers, 
Now  there  is  very  little  secrecy  among  us  managers 
here.  And  when  I  came  home  pretty  blue,  one 
Saturday  night,  it  was  known  quite  soon  Monday 
morning  what  was  the  matter  with  me.  Then  it 
was  that  the  system  was  tested,  Mr.  Freeman. 


The  Enterpriser  313 

One  of  those  very  men  who  had  said  the  hardest 
things  of  me  not  a  year  before,  —  you  know  the 
man,  he  is  that  man  Woodruff,  whose  son  you  took 
a-fishing, — came  round  to  me  on  Monday  night. 
He  told  me  that  they  had  been  putting  their  heads 
together,  and  comparing  their  bank-books,  and 
that,  if  I  thought  twelve  thousand  dollars  would  be 
of  any  use  to  me  the  next  Saturday,  they  could 
manage  that  I  could  have  it,  and  as  much  more  at 
the  end  of  the  month.  And  more  than  this ;  he 
said  if  we  were  pinched  for  money,  as  he  thought 
we  should  be  likely  to  be,  he  had  a  list,  which  he 
gave  me,  of  forty-seven  of  the  best  hands  he  had, 
who  would  not  draw  their  wages  for  four  or  five 
weeks  from  that  time.  Well,  long  before  his  five 
weeks  were  up,  I  had  sold  my  goods  at  very 
handsome  prices,  and  I  was  able  to  address  them 
a  circular  note,  to  thank  them  for  their  loyalty." 

Spinner  told  this  pretty  story  with  a  good  deal 
of  pride.  He  opened  his  desk,  and  took  out  a 
copy  of  his  circular  note,  handsomely  printed,  and 
gave  it  to  me.  It  was  in  these  words :  — 

OFFICE  OF  THE  HAMPTON  MILLS. 

On  behalf  of  the  management  of  the  Mills,  and  of 
Mr.  Nourse,  who  is  absent  in  the  Holy  Land,  the  under 
signed  wish  to  express  their  thanks  as  well  as  his  for  the 
loyalty,  good  sense,  and  courage  with  which  all  parties 
have  rendered  efficient  assistance  to  the  Mills,  in  the  late 
severe  commercial  crisis. 

It  may  be  true  that,  in  the  disorganized  condition  of 


314     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

trade  and  commerce,  such  panics   or  crises  cannot  be 
avoided. 

But  this  is  certain,  that,  with  such  good-will  and  de 
votion  to  a  common  cause  as  have  been  shown  by  those 
who  have  undertaken  the  enterprise  of  the  Hampton 
Mills,  the  convulsions  of  the  money-market  are  not  to  be 
greatly  dreaded.  We  have  had  an  opportunity  to  show 
each  other,  if  we  did  not  know  it  before,  that  there  is 
strength  in  union.  And  such  an  experience  as  this  of  the 
last  two  months  is  enough  to  prove  that  our  enterprise  is 
on  a  solid  foundation. 

With    new  wishes    to    deserve    the    confidence    and 
respect  of  our  fellow-workmen,  we  are 
Their  friends, 

WILLIAM  SPINNER. 
JOHN  WORKMAN. 

"There  was  really  nothing  wonderful  about  it," 
said  Spinner,  thoughtfully,  when  he  saw  that  I  had 
twice  read  his  circular  through.  "  No, — keep  it. 
I  gave  it  to  you  to  keep.  I  have  more  copies 
here. 

"  There  was  really  nothing  wonderful  about  it, 
if  one  will  only  remember  who  Jesus  Christ  was, 
and  what  he  meant  to  set  in  motion,  —  nay,  what 
he  did  set  in  motion.  Mr.  Freeman,  if  I  could  tell 
the  ministers  what  to  preach,  I  would  have  them, 
as  often  as  once  a  month,  show  to  people,  espe 
cially  young  people,  how  practical,  how  efficient, 
—  how  business-like,  if  you  please,  — this  gospel  of 
our  Lord  is.  There  is  apt  to  be  so  much  rhetoric 
and  poetry  in  preaching,  that  I  am  afraid  young 


The  Enterpriser  315 

people  think  Christianity  is  all  outside  of  life,  — 
that  it  is  matter  of  fancy  or  imagination.  Now, 
if  I  were  a  preacher,  I  should  like  nothing  better 
than  to  show  that  the  Saviour  was  the  most  practi 
cal  reformer,  as  he  was  certainly  the  most  success 
ful  reformer,  not  only  in  what  they  call  in  their 
sermons  the  affairs  of  Heaven,  or  the  Heavenly 
Kingdom,  but  in  what  you  or  I  or  these  young 
people  would  call  'Every-day  life.' 

"  Did  I  ever  tell  you  of  what  Mrs.  Spinner  said 
to  a  fine  lady  in  Warburton  yonder,  who  was 
troubled  because  she  could  not  keep  her  servants?  " 

I  said  he  never  had.  Mr.  Spinner  laughed. 
"Why,"  said  he,  "Nancy  heard  her  long  story 
about  the  troubles  she  had  had  ever  since  she 
began  housekeeping,  and  then  she  said,  '  Did  you 
ever  try  the  golden  rule  ?  ' ' 


CHAPTER  VI 
CHILDREN'S  WORK 

I  NOTICED,  on  the  first  day  when  I  went 
through  the  mills,  that  there  were  no  little 
children  at  work  in  any  department.  There  were 
a  good  many  young  people,  whom  I  should  call 
boys  and  girls,  but  they  were,  clearly  enough,  more 
than  sixteen  years  old. 

I  noticed,  also,  however,  that  there  were  no 
boys  loafing  about  the  village.  After  my  first 
day's  experience  in  seeking  trout  in  the  ponds 
above  the  town,  I  tried  to  find  a  boy  who  would 
go  with  me,  to  carry  an  extra  basket  I  had,  and, 
indeed,  for  companionship.  And  although,  after 
a  day  or  two,  I  secured  the  service  of  such  a  boy,  — 
who  became  a  valued  friend  before  I  left  Hampton, 
—  this  was  only  after  rather  a  careful  negotiation, 
and  on  special  terms,  which,  if  this  paper  does  not 
grow  too  long,  I  may  have  a  chance  to  tell. 

I  was  talking  one  afternoon  with  a  man  named 
Holmes,  whom  I  had  fallen  in  with  in  the  works, 
and  of  whom  I  have  spoken  once  already,  and  I 
asked  him  particularly  about  what  he  thought  of 
the  labor  or  work  of  children,  and  what  they  did 


Children's  Work  317 

about  it.  He  said  that  he  did  not  know  of  any 
fixed  rule  in  the  matter  which  would  prevent  Mr. 
Spinner  from  hiring  many  more  children  if  he 
wished,  or  if  he  thought  the  work  required  it. 
"  But,"  he  said,  with  a  good  deal  of  emphasis, 
knocking  the  ashes  from  his  pipe  as  a  sort  of 
gesture  accompanying,  "  he  does  not  think  the 
work  requires  it,  —  and  we  do  not  think  so,  —  I  do 
not  think  so,  —  and  the  men  generally  do  not." 
It  was  quite  clear  to  my  mind,  as  he  spoke,  that  in 
the  face  of  such  unanimity  of  "  the  men  "  Mr. 
Spinner  would  not  be  apt  to  change  his  opinion. 

"  You  see,  Mr.  Freeman,"  said  Holmes,  "  most 
of  the  men  grew  up  in  mills,  —  were  trained  in 
them  themselves,  —  and  they  do  not  like  it.  I 
was  in  a  mill  in  England,  so  young  that  I  hardly 
remember  anything  before  I  went  there. 

"  Well,  there  is  no  doubt  that  a  boy  picks  up 
something  that  way.  He  gets  steady  habits  of 
work,  I  guess,  and  I  guess  there  is  a  certain 
promptness,  —  readiness,  —  call  it  what  you  will,  in 
good  hands  that  have  been  trained  so,  that  they 
would  say  came  from  their  beginning  early.  But 
then,  what  is  that?  I  have  plenty  of  men  and 
women  in  this  mill  who  never  saw  a  loom  till  they 
were  twenty  years  old,  who  are  just  as  prompt  and 
just  as  steady.  They  did  not  get  it  in  one  way,  so 
they  got  it  in  another. 

"  To  go  back,  Mr.  Freeman,  I  do  not  think,  on 
the  whole,  that  men  or  women  who  grew  up  from 
childhood  in  a  mill  want  to  have  their  children 


3 1 8     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

grow  up  so,  if  they  can  help  it.  If  they  can  help 
it, — that's  where  it  is.  Perhaps  they  think  they 
cannot  help  it.  Perhaps  the  whole  business  is 
counted  so  close  —  I  mean  is  carried  on  with  so 
narrow  a  margin  —  that  the  wages  of  the  family 
only  amount  to  enough  to  keep  the  family  in 
bread  and  butter.  But  then,  what  does  this  mean  ? 
I  do  not  know  how  much  you  know  of  trade  or 
manufacturing.  I  know  that  there  is  no  such 
squeeze  as  that  in  the  woollen  business  now, — 
nor  has  been  for  twenty  years,  —  nor  is  like  to  be. 
No,  indeed,  Mr.  Freeman ;  and  if  there  were  any, 
I  would  give  up  making  cloth,  and  I  would  go  to 
Dakota  and  make  wheat,  or  to  Montana  and  make 
wool,  —  that's  what  I  would  do." 

And  Mr.  Holmes  laughed  as  he  thought  of 
himself  on  a  ranch  in  Montana. 

"  You  see,"  he  continued,  filling  his  pipe  again, 
"  you  see,  Mr.  Freeman,  there  are  a  great  many 
other  things  a  boy  has  to  learn,  and  a  girl  too, 
besides  spinning  and  weaving,  if  they  are  to  live 
decently  and  comfortably  in  such  a  country  as 
America.  And  I  do  not  mean  school  learning 
either.  That 's  all  very  well,  but  my  children  learn 
a  good  many  things,  and  need  to  learn  them, 
which  Miss  Jane  Stevens  does  not  teach  them, 
nor  any  other  schoolmistress  or  schoolmaster." 

I  said  that  I  believed  he  had  a  good  many 
children. 

"  Ten  of  my  own,"  he  said  with  some  pride, 
"  and  Peter,  who  came  in  with  the  mail  just  now. 


Children's  Work  3 1 9 

He  is  just  the  same  as  one  of  ours,  but  he  is 
really  the  cousin  of  the  others,  son  of  a  brother 
of  Mrs.  Holmes,  who  was  lost  at  sea.  Eleven  of 
them  there  are.  I  took  Tom  into  my  own  room 
with  me  the  day  he  was  sixteen,  —  and  I  suppose 
I  shall  let  Susie  come  in  the  day  she  is  sixteen,  if 
she  wants  to.  But  maybe  she  will  change  her 
mind  before  then." 

And  he  paused  a  minute,  as  if  considering  this 
question,  before  he  went  on  in  his  rather  voluble 
conversation. 

"  I  told  them,  when  we  came  here,"  he  then  said, 
"  that  if  we  meant  to  have  our  children  grow  up 
strong  men  and  women,  they  must  be  in  the  open 
air,  they  must  have  enough  to  eat  and  drink,  and 
they  must  want  to  eat  and  drink  it.  You  see, 
Mr.  Freeman,  it  is  my  notion  that  all  mill-towns 
have  suffered  from  the  idea  that  they  are  to  be 
nothing  but  mill-towns.  You  say  '  Lowell  is  a 
factory-town,'  and  '  Holyoke  is  a  factory-town/  as 
if  because  they  are  factory-towns  they  can  be 
nothing  else.  Suppose  you  made  the  people  in  a 
ship  into  one  community  in  this  fashion.  Suppose 
that  when  you  launched  her,  you  said  to  all  the 
people  that  sailed  her  that  they  were  to  be  sailors, 
or  at  sea,  all  their  lives.  Suppose  you  said  so  to 
their  wives  and  children, — just  like  those  people 
that  live  in  the  boats  in  Canton  harbor.  What 
sort  of  men,  I  wonder,  would  grow  up  on  your 
ship?  After  all,  the  mill  is  only  a  ship  on  land. 
And  what  I  say  is,  that  the  boys  and  girls  in  it, 


320     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

even  if  they  are,  in  the  end,  to  work  in  it,  want  to 
see  and  learn  and  know  some  other  things,  just  as 
the  sailor's  boys  do  before  they  go  out  with  him, 
—  and,  for  that  matter,  his  girls,  who  never  go  out 
with  him. 

"  Now  it  was  easier  for  us  to  act  on  such  a  plan, 
because  here,  from  the  beginning,  the  men  who 
owned  this  plant  had  the  courage  to  say  that  they 
would  earn  their  money  in  manufacturing  and  in 
nothing  else.  For  the  rest  of  their  investment 
they  wanted  interest  and  not  profits.  Perhaps  you 
know  how  they  gave  up  the  store,  and  said  they 
did  not  mean  to  try  and  make  money  out  of  that ; 
that  was  not  their  affair.  So  they  gave  up  the 
tenements." 

I  said  that  I  did  know  this,  and  that  I  hoped  to 
know  more  of  the  Co-operative  system  than  I  did 
when  I  came  to  Hampton. 

"  Well,  now,"  he  said,  "  the  same  rule  works,  of 
course,  about  rents  and  gardens,  —  houses,  — 
about  these  places  where  we  live.  Of  course, 
when  a  man  like  our  Mr.  Nourse  buys  a  property 
like  this,  there  is  a  temptation  to  see  what  the 
rents  on  the  houses  will  be.  It  is  natural  to  say, 
*  They  have  always  rented  for  ten  per  cent  on  the 
valuation  or  cost,  and  that  will  be  but  a  very  small 
rent,'  —  so  he  will  go  on  so.  There  is  no  great 
oppression  if  he  wants  to  do  so.  But  I  do  not 
believe  it  pays  in  the  long  run.  To  begin  with,  I 
do  not  believe  it  pays  any  man  to  be  in  two  or 
three  different  trades.  If  he  makes  horseshoes,  I 


Children's  Work  321 

say  let  him  make  horseshoes,  and  not  try  to  sell 
ribbons  in  the  evenings.  If  a  man  makes  woollen 
cloth,  let  him  sell  woollen  cloth,  and  not  have 
another  account  for  the  grocery  shop,  and  another 
for  the  rents  and  repairs  of  his  houses.  That 's 
the  way  it  looks  to  me. 

"  Anyway,  as  you  know,  these  people,  or  rather 
this  man,  were  ready  to  let  us  do  what  we  chose, 
if  we  only  paid  him  the  market  interest  on  the 
capital,  and  gave  him  a  third  of  the  profits,  if 
profits  there  were. 

"  Now  I,  and  Spinner,  and  Workman,  —  well,  a 
good  many  of  us,  —  we  went  in  for  Real  Estate. 

"  Real  Estate,  Mr.  Freeman,  with  a  large  R  and 
a  large  E,  —  a  very  large  R,  and  a  very  large  E. 
'  Fasten  a  man  to  the  ground,'  says  I,  '  and  let  it 
be  worth  his  while  to  make  it  worth  living  on/ 
No,  Mr.  Freeman,"  —  and  he  laughed,  —  "I  spent 
a  winter  with  the  Cherokees  once,  at  a  place  they 
call  Tahlequah.  I  saw  enough  of  common  prop 
erty  in  land  then  and  there,  and  I  do  not  want  to 
see  any  more.  '  Real  Estate,'  says  I.  And  when 
I  said  this  to  the  others,  I  did  not  go  back  on 
what  I  have  been  saying  to  you.  Because  when  I 
own  a  place,  as  I  own  this  place,"  —  and  here 
Holmes  looked  up  with  a  certain  pride  on  his 
wife's  trumpet  vines  and  Dutchman's  pipe,  which 
shaded  the  piazza  where  we  were  sitting,  —  "  when 
I  owned  this  place,  —  when  I  bought  it,  —  I  did 
not  buy  it  to  make  money.  I  make  money  yon 
der,  —  I  make  money  by  making  cloth,  —  or  help- 


322     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

ing  make  it.  But  I  want  a  real  home.  I  want  it 
for  her,  and  I  want  it  for  them.  And  so  I  said 
to  Spinner  and  Workman,  says  I,  '  You  let  these 
boys  and  girls  of  mine  live  in  a  place  I  own,  and 
we  shall  all  take  care  of  it.  You  put  me  in  a  tene 
ment  somebody  else  owns,  and  for  one  I  shall 
be  apt  to  let  somebody  else  take  care  of  it.'  So 
they  fixed  it,  or  all  of  us  fixed  it  together.  They 
gave  me  a  bond  for  a  deed  of  this  place ;  it  was 
one  acre  then;  I  have  another  acre  back  there 
now,  and  afterward  I  bought  a  wood-lot  yonder. 
I  was  to  pay  five  per  cent  interest,  and  ten  per 
cent  a  year  on  the  capital  if  I  could,  and  I  was  to 
have  a  deed  when  I  had  paid  forty  per  cent.  But, 
you  know,  after  we  were  sure  the  thing  would  work 
here,  it  was  not  much  money,  and  I  drew  out  of 
the  savings-bank  all  I  needed  to  pay  up  the  whole. 
Yes,  it  is  a  pretty  place.  But  it 's  a  much  prettier 
place  than  it  was  when  we  came  here.  And  that 
is  what  I  was  coming  at.  If  you  do  not  mind,  put 
on  your  hat,  and  come  round  with  me." 

So  we  walked  round  his  little  domain.  Yes,  a 
little  domain,  but  his  own.  And  he  had  all  the 
pride  in  it,  and  had  the  right  to,  which  my  friend 
Mr.  Coram  has,  when  he  takes  me  through  his 
grape-houses  and  other  forcing  houses.  He  made 
me  go  into  the  large  hen-house,  and  showed  me 
what  he  could  of  the  methods  of  the  hatching- 
house.  But  he  said  he  must  not  interfere  too  far, 
or  his  wife  and  his  girls  would  be  after  him.  He 
told  me  with  pride  that,  excepting  three  days' 


Children's  Work  323 

labor,  when  he  hired  a  man  to  help  in  digging  some 
post-holes,  and  in  some  other  heavy  work,  every 
nail  had  been  driven,  every  partition  framed,  and 
every  sash  fixed  in  its  place  by  the  handiwork  of 
his  boys.  "  Let  them  laugh  at  the  Industrial 
School,"  said  he ;  "  that  is  what  comes  of  it."  Then 
I  had  to  go  through  the  back  lot,  which  had  been 
added  to  the  other,  and  I  was  indeed  surprised 
to  see  the  show  he  had  of  pears,  and  to  notice  how 
scientifically  even  the  beds  of  vegetables  had  been 
trained.  All  the  potatoes  of  the  winter,  all  the 
celery,  all  the  tomatoes  of  the  summer,  and  all  that 
Mrs.  Holmes  and  her  daughters  would  can,  were 
the  product  of  this  garden.  All  the  poultry  they 
ate,  and  all  the  eggs,  came  from  this  hen-house, 
and  they  raised  enough  to  pay  in  simple  barter  for 
their  milk,  which  came  from  a  neighbor,  who  on  a 
similar  lot  kept  a  cow,  though  he  had  to  hire  pas 
turage.  We  were  still  surveying  the  crops  when 
the  bell  rang  for  tea.  He  asked  me  to  take  tea 
with  them,  and  I  was  glad  to  do  so.  It  gave  me  a 
chance  to  see  the  family,  all  the  way  down  to  the 
little  curly-headed  girl  who  sat  in  a  high-chair,  and 
kept  the  table  clear  for  a  small  semicircle  drawn 
from  that  centre.  There  was  a  younger  boy  in 
the  cradle. 

The  supper,  physically  speaking,  did  credit  to 
Mrs.  Holmes  and  to  her  daughters.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  describe  that  matter.  Indeed,  the 
rugged  and  hearty  aspect  of  the  children,  who  did 
thorough  justice  to  their  mother's  provisions  and 


324     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

previsions,  was  what  interested  me.  There  was  no 
hurry  at  table,  but  "  when  hunger  both  and  thirst 
were  fully  satisfied,"  we  adjourned  to  the  piazza 
again,  and  Holmes  took  up  the  line  of  his  argu 
ment. 

"  What  I  set  out  to  say,  when  we  went  out  into 
the  garden,  was  this.  Suppose  I  granted  to  Adam 
Smith  and  the  other  high-flyers,  that  Labor,  as  they 
call  it,  by  which  they  generally  mean  work,  shall 
be  divided  to  the  bottom,  if  you  want  to  make 
money.  I  do  not  grant  it,  but  suppose  I  did.  Sup 
pose  that  every  egg  in  the  omelette  you  ate  to-night 
had  been  bought  in  Michigan,  as  on  Adam  Smith's 
theory  it  would  and  should  have  been,  in  the 
cheapest  market.  Suppose  even  it  was  as  fresh, 
coming  from  Michigan.  Suppose  that  honey, 
which  came  from  Betty's  hive,  had  been  brought 
from  Detroit,  and  had  cost  a  cent  a  pound  less 
than  it  has  cost  me.  Suppose  every  pear  which 
was  on  that  dish  could  have  been  bought  in  Went- 
worth  market  cheaper  than  the  money  it  has  cost 
us  to  keep  up  the  orchard.  Hark  you,  I  do  not 
grant  one  of  these  things,  but  suppose  it  was  so, 
what  am  I  for,  Mr.  Freeman?  What  is  Clarinda 
for?  What  are  we  living  for?  What  is  this  house 
for,  anyway?  Certainly  it  is  that  these  children 
may  grow  up  into  strong  and  good  and  well  men 
and  women.  In  the  long  run,  that  is  the  thing  I 
have  most  at  heart,  and  Clarinda.  Now  let  us  sup 
pose  that  since  April  my  radishes  and  strawberries 
and  raspberries  and  currants  and  peas  and  beans 


Children's  Work  325 

and  corn  and  cauliflower  and  cabbages  and  pota 
toes  have  cost  me  a  hundred  dollars  more  than 
they  would  have  cost  me  in  the  market, — what 
should  I  do  with  this  hundred  dollars?  Suppose 
I  spent  it  —  as  observe  I  have  spent  it  —  on  the 
education  of  these  boys  and  girls  who  have  worked 
on  this  garden,  among  other  things.  There  are 
four  of  them.  Where  could  I  have  got  for  one  of 
them,  for  twenty-five  dollars,  what  I  have  secured 
by  keeping  him  at  work  under  my  eye  or  his 
mother's? 

"But  Adam  Smith,  or  even  Robert  Owen,  might 
tell  me  that  if  the  older  boys  and  girls  were  in  the 
factory  I  should  have  twelve  or  even  fourteen  dol 
lars  a  week  more  on  the  pay-roll  every  Saturday, 
and  that  that  goes  a  great  way  toward  Clarinda's 
account  at  the  store  for  flour  and  butter  and  meat 
and  shirts  and  trousers  and  coats  and  bonnets  and 
gowns,  and  above  all,  for  shoes,"  —  and  here  he 
laughed  at  his  own  enumeration  of  man's  requisites. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  of  that.  And  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  eleven  hearty  children  —  for  Peter  is 
all  the  same  as  our  own  —  eat  nothing.  Eleven 
children  like  these,  Mr.  Freeman,  eat  in  a  year  well- 
nigh  seven  barrels  of  flour,  and  other  things  in 
proportion.  Let  'em,  says  I,  —  the  more  they  shall 
have.  And  I  do  not  pretend  that  my  farm  here,  as 
a  machine  for  producing  nitrogen  and  phosphates 
out  of  the  rain  and  the  sun,  compares  with  the 
machines  out  in  Dakota  which  do  the  same  thing. 
But  I  do  claim,  as  the  patent  lawyers  say,  that,  as 


326     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

a  machine  for  training  boys  and  girls  into  men  and 
women,  it  is  much  simpler  and  much  better  adapted 
to  the  purpose  than  the  complex  machine  by  which 
Peter  works  at  a  loom  and  earns  money  to  send  to 
Dakota  and  buy  wheat.  You  see  what  I  mean." 

Yes,  I  did  see  very  well,  and  I  was  glad  he  had 
worked  it  out  for  himself  so  well.  He  wanted 
to  show  me  his  figures,  and  to  please  him  I  looked 
at  them.  But  I  do  not  copy  them  here,  though 
I  could,  because  the  reader  would  incredulously 
think  they  had  been  doctored.  The  truth  is, 
however,  that  such  a  spot  as  Holmes  owned,  if 
manured  by  the  foot  of  the  owner,  as  John  Ran 
dolph  said,  becomes  more  productive  than  the 
outsiders  think.  It  was  not  difficult,  in  a  place 
like  that,  to  procure  the  stimulants  they  wanted 
for  their  garden-beds.  They  had  only  too  much 
working  force,  when  they  needed  to  plant  and 
to  weed ;  and  the  harvesting,  as  Holmes  said, 
laughing,  took  care  of  itself,  when  the  family 
was  to  eat  the  strawberries.  The  secret  of  suc 
cess,  if  one  spoke  of  the  theory  of  the  thing,  was 
that  this  very  evanescent  force  which  we  call 
labor  could  be  applied  at  any  moment  when  it 
was  wanted,  without  contract,  without  wages, 
without  book-keeping;  and  something  came  of 
it.  What  came  of  it  I  had  seen  in  the  eggs  and 
milk  and  cream  and  honey  and  stewed  pears  on 
the  tea-table,  and  had  heard  of  in  the  potatoes 
and  other  vegetables  of  which  he  had  told  me. 

As    to    money    earnings    from    the    children, 


Children's  Work  327 

Holmes  told  me  what  hardly  surprised  me.  He 
said  that  all  up  and  down  the  valley,  within 
three  miles  of  him  on  either  side,  the  farmers, 
real  farmers,  would  hire  his  boys  for  quite  as 
much  as  the  woollen  mills  would  pay  them,  at 
several  places  between  April  and  November,  and 
that  he  had  rather  let  them  go  to  such  work,  for  a 
week  or  two  at  a  time,  than  keep  them  in  the  mills. 
"  That  is  what  we  gain,"  said  he,  "  by  building  up 
these  truck  farms,  as,  in  fact,  our  whole  system 
of  manufacture  does.  Somebody  must  raise  the 
milk  and  poultry  and  vegetables  for  the  people  at 
work,  not  only  here,  but  at  Wentworth  and  at 
every  mill  along  this  stream.  You  cannot  import 
all  that  food  as  readily  as  you  can  flour  and  beef. 
And  it  ends  in  a  set  of  farms, — well,  you  Western 
men  would  not  call  them  farms,  but  we  do,  —  which 
supply  these  needs.  Now  there  are  times  when 
these  farmers  need  extra  work,  and  a  good  deal 
of  it,  and  then  comes  the  chance  for  my  boys.  So 
they  learn  two  trades,  —  and  that  is  what  every 
man  ought  to  do.  Who  is  it  that  says  every  man 
must  have  a  vocation  and  an  avocation  ?  " 

"But  you  do  not  make  Mr.  Freeman  under 
stand  the  real  secret  of  success,"  said  Mrs.  Holmes, 
"  unless  you  tell  him  that  we  own  this  place,  and 
do  not  hire  it." 

"Oh,  I  told  him  that,"  said  her  husband,  "in 
my  long  lecture  to  him  before  tea." 

She  said  that  she  could  illustrate  the  distinc 
tion  by  telling  me  one  thing.  "  Here  is  this  vine, 


328      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

which  you  call  so  pretty,  which  is  indeed  the 
glory  of  the  front  of  the  house.  When  we  came 
here,  this  piazza,  was  as  bare  and  ugly  as  any 
which  would  be  found  in  New  England.  Now,  if 
we  had  hired  the  house,  I  should  have  spent 
twenty-five  cents  for  five  papers  of  seeds.  I 
should  have  bought  morning-glories,  and  cypress- 
vine,  and  what  they  call  cucumber-vine,  and  cobaea, 
and  perhaps  some  scarlet-runners.  You  see  I 
should  have  wanted  to  cover  the  front  as  quickly 
as  I  could.  Instead  of  this,  so  soon  as  I  knew  I 
was  to  stay  here,  I  sent  to  Mr.  Misho's  for  this 
one  root  of  Dutchman's  pipe,  and  paid  my  quarter 
of  a  dollar  for  that.  That  was  years  ago.  But  my 
piazza  is  more  and  more  comfortable  every  summer, 
with  no  cost  to  anybody,  while  all  my  morning- 
glories,  and  annuals  would  have  been  cut  down  by 
the  first  hard  frost.  I  should  have  saved  my  seeds, 
but  I  should  have  had  to  begin  again  every  year." 
Her  husband  listened,  with  a  sort  of  pride  for 
the  exact  fitness  of  the  parable,  and  said  that 
that  instance  did  tell  the  whole  story.  "And 
Clarinda  isn't  selfish,"  he  said,  laughing;  "she 
isn't  half  so  selfish  as  the  rest  of  us  are.  She 
would  simply  be  doing  her  duty  in  buying  hei 
annuals.  For,  if  she  lived  in  a  hired  house,  of 
course  it  would  be  her  duty  to  make  it  look 
pretty  as  soon  as  she  could,  —  in  six  hours,  if 
she  could,  or,  if  not  so,  in  six  weeks.  For  my 
part,  when  she  sent  for  her  Dutchman,  I  sent 
for  a  Catawba  vine.  I  bought  a  wheelbarrow 


Children's  Work  329 

load  of  leather  clippings  from  old  Soule  around 
the  corner,  and  treated  my  land  with  them. 
Step  round  and  see  the  vine  with  me,"  he  said. 
"I  feed  it  with  waste  from  the  butcher's  four 
times  every  summer,  and  now  look  there." 

He  pointed  up  with  pride  to  the  magnificent 
clusters  of  grapes,  such  clusters  as  civilized  man 
had  always  taken  as  the  noblest  type  of  plenty  and 
luxury.  "  There,"  said  Holmes,  "  who  does  better 
than  that?  In  theory,  you  know,  I  ought  to  send 
to  Ohio  or  New  York  for  those,  and  pay  for  them 
in  our  goods.  But,  once  in  a  while,  I  am  not 
sorry  to  upset  Adam  Smith  in  a  good  exception. 
My  boys  made  all  that  trellis,  they  will  pick  all 
the  grapes,  and  they  will  eat  most  of  them ;  there 
are  nearly  two  hundred  clusters  in  all.  But,  after 
all,  these  are  only  the  ornaments.  The  real  bread 
winner  of  the  place  is  the  hennery  yonder,  with  its 
machinery  for  hatching  out  the  little  chicks." 
And  so  we  returned  to  the  piazza. 

Then  there  followed  a  long  conversation  which  I 
will  not  try  to  repeat.  Holmes  insisted  that  the 
sunshine  and  rain  on  a  man's  place  was  a  part  of 
his  wealth,  which  he  must  invest  if  he  could.  Then 
he  said  that  the  muscle  and  strength  and  skill  of 
the  children  was  another  part  of  a  man's  wealth, 
which  must  be  used,  if  they  were  not  hurt  in  the 
using.  But  then  he  fell  into  a  more  serious  vein. 

"I  will  not  pretend,  Mr.  Freeman,  that  these 
profit  and  loss  reasons  are  the  real  reasons  why  I 
bring  up  my  children  so.  These  are  only  my 


330     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

justifications  after  the  fact,  as  the  lawyers  would 
say.  You  are  a  Christian  man,  I  hope,  and  I  try 
to  be  another.  I  can  say  to  you,  then,  what  per 
haps  I  would  not  say  at  the  street  corner,  —  that  I 
want  these  children  of  mine  to  grow  up  as  children 
of  God;  sure  of  his  presence,  and  happy  in  his 
love.  I  have  a  notion  that  if  they  are  in  the  open 
air,  they  feel  his  presence,  and  see  his  work;  that 
he  seems  near  to  them,  and  they  feel  near  to  him. 
Anyway,  they  are  with  their  mother  more,  and 
that  is  the  best  thing  that  can  happen  to  them,  for 
we  do  not  have  our  children  any  too  long.  And 
if,  in  this  open-air  life,  healthy  and  free,  they  do 
grow  up  happy  and  good,  why  that  is  the  whole 
thing.  You  and  I  must  not  be  counting  coppers 
or  adding  up  columns  of  figures,  to  find  out 
whether  one  plan  is  better  than  another.  If  it  is 
better  for  them,  that  is  all." 

And  as  we  went  into  the  house,  after  I  had 
bidden  good-by  to  his  wife  and  the  older  children, 
he  said,  with  a  good  deal  of  feeling,  "  It  troubles 
me  a  good  deal  that  the  men  who  make  laws,  and 
the  men  who  write  books,  speak  as  if  they  thought 
that  a  little  more  profit  or  a  little  more  product 
was  the  important  thing.  Of  course  they  do  not 
think  so.  Of  course  every  one  wants  more  life,  — 
health  instead  of  sickness,  happiness  instead  of 
misery,  strength  instead  of  weakness.  A  Christian 
state  cares  for  its  people,  and  does  not  care,  except 
for  them,  for  its  things." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SCHOOL 

I  REMINDED  Spinner  one  day  that  he  had 
promised  to  show  me  something  of  the  school 
arrangements,  and  he  said  that  if  I  were  willing  to 
take  a  walk,  we  would  both  go  down  to  the  school- 
house,  and  stop  on  our  way  to  find  Miss  Stevens, 
who  was  their  teacher  at  that  moment,  and  had 
been  for  more  than  a  year.  We  found  an  intelli 
gent,  wide-awake  woman,  perhaps  thirty-five  years 
old,  with  a  little  of  the  firmness  and  regularity 
which  comes  on  people  who  have  kept  a  school 
for  seventeen  years,  interested  in  her  work,  and 
willing  to  talk  about  it.  She  said  she  would  take 
her  keys  with  her,  and  show  us  the  schoolhouse, 
though  there  was,  on  the  whole,  very  little  to 
show. 

They  were  District  13  in  a  large  township,  and 
the  general  school  committee  of  the  town  had 
found  it  was  well  to  let  them  carry  on  things  after 
a  rather  exceptional  way.  The  district  committee 
in  New  England  has  very  large  powers,  and  does 
very  much  as  it  chooses,  and  particularly  if  one 
member  of  the  district  committee  is  a  member  of 


332     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

the  general  town  committee,  the  town  committee 
does  not  much  interfere  with  the  plans  of  the 
district,  so  only  the  work  required  under  the  statute 
of  the  State  is  done.  There  is  no  general  law  as 
to  hours,  there  is  no  general  law  as  to  the  number 
of  weeks  which  the  school  shall  be  kept  open;  all 
the  law  requires  is  that  there  shall  be  a  school 
every  winter  and  a  school  every  summer,  with  a 
certain  minimum  beneath  which  no  district  must 
fall,  or  indeed  would  be  permitted  to  fall,  in  the 
general  state  of  public  opinion.  These  people  at 
Hampton  more  than  complied  with  the  letter  of 
the  law,  and  Miss  Stevens  assured  me  that  their 
results  were  quite  as  satisfactory  as  she  had  found 
in  places  where  the  schools  were  kept  on  a  more 
conventional  footing. 

The  schoolhouse  was  the  old  schoolhouse  which 
they  had  found  there,  —  a  perfectly  simple  build 
ing,  which  might  have  cost  a  couple  of  hundred 
dollars  to  build,  with  one  large  room  only,  and  a 
little  anteroom,  in  which  the  boys  and  girls  hung 
up  their  coats  and  cloaks,  and  where  they  left  their 
overshoes.  But  I  noticed  that  she  or  somebody 
had  ornamented  it  prettily  with  chromos  and  other 
pictures ;  they  had  a  very  good  set  of  school  maps 
hanging  upon  the  walls,  and  the  general  aspect  of 
the  place  was  cheerful.  I  also  noticed  that  the 
platform  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room  was  rather 
higher  than  I  should  have  made  it.  But  I  asked 
no  questions,  knowing  that  "  the  dumb  man's 
borders  still  increase." 


The  School  333 

Miss  Stevens  said  that  she  had  very  little  to 
explain,  and,  indeed,  very  little  to  show.  She 
took  me  to  the  end  of  the  room  opposite  the 
platform,  and  threw  open  a  half  closet,  half  cup 
board,  which  was  there,  and  I  saw  in  a  moment 
that  it  was  a  sort  of  alcove,  in  which  they  had 
stored  a  great  many  books,  —  I  should  think  more 
than  a  thousand.  This,  she  said,  was  the  school 
library;  or,  if  I  choose  to  call  it  so,  a  public 
library.  Mr.  Spinner  would  tell  me  where  they 
got  the  money  for  it,  and  who  had  the  books. 
Then  she  said,  laughing,  that  she  was  not  only 
the  schoolmistress,  but  she  was  librarian  of  the 
library.  She  opened  another  closet,  and  there  I 
saw  were  crowded  in  two  or  three  tables,  which, 
she  told  me,  were  the  reading-room  tables;  and 
she  explained  to  me  how  they  could  be  brought 
out,  and  arranged  so  as  to  cover  up  the  desks  of  her 
school-children,  and  serve  her  for  a  reading-room 
in  the  evening  of  some  of  the  winter  months,  when 
the  schoolroom  was  open  for  the  purpose.  "  The 
schoolhouse  has  to  '  pay  a  double  debt,' "  she 
said ;  "  and  it  is  now  opera  house,  now  school 
room,  now  library,  and  now  reading-room.  I  am 
retained  by  these  gentlemen  in  the  four  capacities 
of  mistress  of  amusements,  director  of  reading, 
librarian,  and  schoolmistress.  One  of  your  wise 
men  says  that  every  one  should  have  a  vocation 
and  an  avocation  and  a  '  third.'  I  not  only  have  a 
third,  but  I  have  a  fourth.  But,  as  another  wise 
man  says,  I  make  one  hand  wash  another,  and 


334     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

really  the  boys  and  girls  are  very  good  assistants. 
There  is  nothing  a  bright  boy  likes  better  than  to 
be  told  that  he  may  help  in  the  library,  and  there 
is  nothing  that  gives  him  more  self-respect  than  to 
be  put  upon  some  committee  in  charge  of  the 
newspapers  or  magazines  in  the  reading-room." 

I  listened,  well  pleased,  for  the  little  woman  was 
now  talking  to  me  on  what  is  rather  a  favorite 
topic  of  my  own,  and  I  began  asking  her  a  librarian's 
questions,  and  other  questions  which  would  hardly 
occur  to  a  person  who  had  not  had  in  hand  a  set 
of  duties  which  I  have  had  half  my  life,  but  which, 
with  the  reader,  need  not  be  spoken  of.  I  found 
that  she  was  in  no  sort  above  her  business ;  on  the 
other  hand,  she  was  well  disposed  to  magnify  her 
office,  and  she  gave  me  some  very  good  hints  in 
administration.  But  as  to  the  sinews  of  war,  as 
to  the  way  in  which  the  money  was  collected  and 
disbursed  which  all  these  various  enterprises  de 
manded,  she  always  referred  me  to  Mr.  Spinner. 

"  But  if  your  heart  is  in  it,"  she  said,  "  and  if  the 
people  you  work  for  are  sympathetic,  as  the  people 
are  for  whom  I  work,  the  thing  does  not  require  as 
much  money  as  people  imagine,  or  as  it  requires 
on  paper,  —  no,  not  nearly  as  much  as  it  requires 
when  you  work  from  above  below,  as  I  have  seen 
such  work  done,  when  liberal  people  and  generous 
people  were  condescending  to  improve  and  level 
up  another  kind  of  people.  With  us,  nobody  is 
condescending ;  we  are,  if  you  please,  a  little  selfish. 
It  very  soon  appears  that  it  is  easier  to  have  one 


The  School  335 

of  Trollope's  novels  answer  the  purpose  of  twenty 
of  us,  or  one  or  two  copies  of  '  Harper's '  answer 
the  purpose  of  a  large  circle  of  readers,  than  if 
everybody  were  selfishly  keeping  the  book  or  the 
magazine  at  his  own  house  and  occasionally  lend 
ing  it.  Very  soon,  after  a  year  or  two,  the  bound 
volumes  of  the  magazines  became  books  of  the 
very  first  interest  to  children.  All  children  like  to 
follow  up  a  series  of  bound  magazines.  They  like 
it  rather  more  than  they  like  anything  else.  In 
deed,  Mr.  Freeman,  the  difficult  point  with  a  public 
library  is  at  the  beginning.  The  old  proverb  is 
certainly  true  there.  Somehow  it  happens  that 
the  first  five  hundred  books  you  buy  are  infallibly 
stupid  books.  They  are  the  '  books  which  no 
gentleman's  library  should  be  without,'  but  which 
might  as  well  be  manufactured  out  of  wood  and 
leather,  and  nailed  up  permanently  on  the  shelves. 
It  is  not  until  you  have  done  with  the  '  standard 
books,'  and  begin  to  supply  people  with  the  every 
day  literature  of  the  time,  that  they  begin  to  un 
derstand  that  it  is  worth  while  to  go  to  the  library, 
and  the  time  when  they  understand  that  it  is  worth 
while  to  support  the  library  is  even  later.  But 
when  they  have  once  tasted  blood,  there  is  nothing 
about  which  a  community  is  so  unanimous  as  it  is 
in  the  support  of  its  library.  Here  I  make  them 
bring  me  everything.  I  make  the  man  who  comes 
up  on  the  train  bring  me  the  '  New  York  Herald  ' 
or  '  Tribune  '  of  that  day,  that  I  may  have  it  on  the 
table  of  my  reading-room.  We  cannot  afford  to 


336     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

subscribe  for  half  a  dozen  dailies.  But  really,  there 
is  not  a  night  when  one  of  my  boys  cannot  pick 
up  a  daily  at  the  station  as  the  train  passes  us,  or 
some  one  does  not  bring  it  in  here.  Our  files 
will  not  be  very  uniform,  but  we  are,  all  the 
same,  supplied  with  something,  and  if  people  read 
journals  of  half  a  dozen  schools  in  politics,  why,  it 
is  none  the  worse  for  them.  In  the  same  way,  we 
have  most  of  our  magazines,  —  not  all ;  some  we 
subscribe  for ;  but  I  encourage  people  to  send  their 
magazines  to  me  as  soon  as  they  have  done  with 
them.  I  promise  them  that  we  will  bind  them, 
and,  after  a  fashion,  we  do  bind  them,  though  you 
would  think  it  is  rather  homely  binding.  I  have 
taught  the  girls  to  do  that.  And  the  consequence 
of  all  this  is,  if  you  should  come  in  here,  after  the 
first  of  October,  or  before  the  first  of  May,  you 
would  find,  every  evening,  that  my  tables  are  out, 
that  my  periodicals  are  on  the  tables,  and  that  this 
little  room  is  quite  as  full  as  it  will  hold  of  people 
who  have  come  in  here  to  read.  Indeed,  last  year, 
I  was  obliged  to  establish  a  branch,  of  which  Mr. 
Spinner  will  tell  you,  at  the  other  end  of  the  village, 
because  we  were  overcrowded  here." 

All  this  entertained  me,  because  it  fell  in  with 
various  plans  of  my  own,  which  had  had  more  or 
less  success  in  various  localities.  Then  I  asked 
her  about  the  school  hours,  and  the  extent  to 
which  she  carried  her  scholars.  "  As  to  that," 
replied  Miss  Jane  Stevens,  "  the  committee  is 
good-natured,  and  leave  me  very  much  to  my 


The  School  337 

own  devices.  When  I  came  here,  I  found  that 
the  school  had  been  very  small,  and,  in  fact,  be 
fore  our  mill  was  established,  hardly  anybody  lived 
in  these  houses,  and  very  few  of  those  people  who 
did  live  here  had  any  children.  I  had  kept  school 
in  factory  villages  before.  The  general  object  in 
most  of  them  is  to  crowd  the  children  through  the 
thirteen  weeks  which  are  required  by  law,  so  that 
they  may  have  the  other  nine  months  to  work  in 
the  mills ;  and  the  pressure  of  the  parents  on  the 
committee,  or,  generally,  of  the  directors  of  the 
mills,  is  the  same  way.  Then  we  are  a  good  deal 
pressed  and  embarrassed  often,  because  the  parents 
are  very  anxious  to  get  our  certificate  that  the  chil 
dren  have  worked  through  the  thirteen  weeks,  and 
frequently  they  ask  for  the  certificate  before  they 
have  any  right  to  it.  Then,  if  you  refuse  the  cer 
tificate,  you  get  into  hot  water,  and  alienate  that 
family,  and  perhaps  their  neighbors. 

"  We  have  none  of  this  difficulty  here.  Mr. 
Spinner  will  tell  you  how  soon  he  and  his  friends 
determined  that  they  would  not  have  any  children 
working  in  the  mills  who  were  not  sixteen  years 
old.  I  suppose  that  determination  made  them 
trouble,  but  it  gave  me  great  joy.  I  did  not  in 
sist  upon  what  you  would  call  a  city  school.  I 
was  perfectly  willing  to  fall  into  the  habit  of  all  the 
country  districts  here,  in  having  only  a  winter 
school  or  a  summer  school;  although  Mr.  Spin 
ner  was  kind  enough,"  she  said,  nodding  to  him 
and  smiling,  "  to  let  me  have  my  own  way  in  that 


338      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

regard.  But  I  did  say  that  I  should  like  to  have 
the  school  open  for  thirteen  full  weeks  in  the  win 
ter,  and  that  I  should  like  to  have  it  open  for  thir 
teen  full  weeks  in  the  summer.  I  ought  to  explain 
to  you,  that  I  had  made  an  agreement  that  I  would 
not  teach  anywhere  else,  and  that  my  salary  was 
fixed  to  run  from  the  first  of  January  to  the  last  of 
December,  so  that  I  was  to  arrange  the  school  as  I 
thought  it  best  for  me  and  for  the  community.  I 
do  not  think  that  I  was  selfish  in  the  matter.  There 
were  reasons  why  it  would  have  been  an  advantage 
to  me  to  have  had  the  school  open  for  forty  weeks ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  was  interested  in  Mr. 
Spinner's  plans  and  Mr.  Workman's  plans ;  grad 
ually  I  became  acquainted  with  the  men  and  women 
who  work  in  the  mill,  and  if  I  were  to  do  it  over 
again,  and  establish  such  schools  as  I  wanted  in 
the  villages  up  and  down  this  river,  I  would  not 
ask  for  more  than  twenty-six  weeks'  work  out  of 
the  fifty-two,  for  these  boys  and  girls. 

"  I  did  think,  and  I  said  so  to  these  gentlemen, 
that  as  we  have  a  good  many  people  who  had  not 
had  all  the  school  training  that  they  could  use  to 
advantage,  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  open 
the  schoolhouse  here  for  an  evening  school  during 
three  or  four  of  the  winter  months.  I  said  that  if 
they  were  willing  to  do  that,  I  would  be  here  from 
half-past  six,  when  supper  is  always  over,  to  half- 
past  nine.  I  said  that  I  would  not  undertake  more 
pupils  than  I  could  manage,  but  that  I  thought, 
with  the  help  that  I  could  find,  which  need  not 


The  School  339 

cost  a  great  deal,  we  could  manage  perhaps  as 
many  as  forty  pupils  in  the  evening.  In  point  of 
fact,  we  had  an  average  of  about  thirty- five,  and 
that  is  the  way  in  which  my  time  is  divided. 

"  There  is  an  evening  school,  which  runs  for  two 
months  late  in  the  autumn.  There  is  a  regular 
winter  school,  which  runs  three  months.  There  is 
an  evening  school,  which  runs  for  two  months  more 
in  the  end  of  winter  and  in  the  spring ;  then  what 
they  call  the  summer  school  comes  in  at  the  end  of 
May,  and  in  June  and  July ;  and  for  the  rest  there 
are  the  holidays." 

"  Tell  Mr.  Freeman  about  your  Mutual  Im 
provement  Society/'  said  Mr.  Spinner. 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  him  about  that,"  Miss  Jane 
Stevens  said,  "  but  I  think  I  had  a  little  rather  that 
he  should  see  it  first,  and  I  wonder  if  you  cannot 
bring  him  around  this  evening.  They  do  not  meet 
here  to-night.  They  are  going  to  give  a  sort  of 
exhibition  at  the  other  hall.  Bring  him  to  that,  if 
he  is  willing  to  sit  through,  and  let  him  see  what 
we  do  with  our  native  talent  here.  After  the  ex 
hibition  is  over,  I  will  tell  him  something  of  the 
detail  of  its  management." 

Accordingly,  at  tea-time  in  the  evening,  it  was 
announced  that  Mr.  Spinner  and  I  were  going  to 
the  evening  entertainment  provided  by  the  society, 
and  Mrs.  Spinner  and  two  or  three  of  the  older 
children  went  with  us.  We  walked  up  the  village 
street,  and  saw  that  other  people  were  doing  the 


340     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

same,  to  the  church,  and  here  I  found  that  the 
"  entertainment "  was  to  be  given  in  the  large  vestry 
of  the  church,  which  occupied  the  whole  floor  of 
the  building,  and  into  which  we  descended  by  a 
few  steps,  —  the  floor  of  the  vestry  being  perhaps 
three  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground.  The 
room  was  not  very  high,  but  not  so  low  but  what 
we  could  hear  and  see  easily.  It  was  prettily  dec 
orated  by  well-chosen  prints,  and  a  nice  frieze  of 
well-drawn  pictures  illustrating  the  parables  ran  all 
round  it  just  below  the  wall.  I  observed,  as  soon 
as  I  went  in,  that  some  forty  seats  were  reserved  in 
front.  For  the  rest,  the  hall  perhaps  seated  a  hun 
dred  people  more,  and  these  seats  were  all  taken 
before  eight  o'clock.  The  announcement  had  been 
that  the  exercises  would  begin  at  five  minutes  after 
eight,  and  in  a  moment  I  saw  the  reason  for  this 
announcement.  Those  of  the  factory  hands  who 
chose  to  come,  and  who  were  not  released  till  eight 
o'clock,  had  thronged  across  directly  from  their 
work  at  the  mill,  apparently  choosing  to  postpone 
their  supper  until  after  the  entertainment  was  over, 
and  they  occupied  the  seats  which  had  been  re 
served  for  them.  So  soon  as  they  were  all  in,  the 
exercises  of  the  evening  began. 

A  young  man,  who  I  should  not  think  was  more 
than  twenty-one  years  old,  stepped  forward  and 
made  a  bow  and  said,  "  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  we 
have  a  programme  of  unusual  interest  to  offer  you 
this  evening.  You  will  see  that  preparations  have 
been  made  for  a  scientific  experiment,"  —  and  he 


The  School  341 

turned  and  pointed  to  rather  a  large  trough  which 
he  had  by  his  side.  "  At  the  last  meeting  of  the 
philosophical  section,  Mr.  St.  John  was  appointed 
to  tell  us  why  ice  floats  upon  water,  and  he  has 
prepared  one  or  two  experiments  which  will  illus 
trate  this." 

At  once  a  young  man  stepped  up  from  the  floor, 
and  brought  his  block  of  ice  with  him  in  a  basket, 
showed  how  high  it  floated,  and  then,  with  various 
tubs  and  pumps  and  other  apparatus,  proceeded 
to  give  some  simple  information  as  to  the  proper 
ties  of  air  and  water,  and  what  would  happen,  and 
what  would  not  happen,  etc.,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
interest  his  audience,  and  certainly  teach  some  of 
them  something  which  they  did  not  know  before. 
His  statement  was  very  short,  and  Mr.  Spinner 
told  me  that  no  person  was  permitted  to  occupy 
more  than  five  minutes,  no  matter  if  he  had  to 
demonstrate  the  most  elaborate  truths  known  to 
science.  He  was  cordially  applauded  when  he 
had  done,  and  withdrew,  leaving  his  ice  floating 
upon  the  water.  The  president  again  stepped  for 
ward,  consulted  his  paper,  and  said,  "  Two  of  the 
young  ladies  will  favor  us  with  a  duet."  Two  nice 
girls  came  up  on  the  platform;  their  music  was 
already  placed  for  them  on  the  piano,  and  they 
played  sufficiently  well  a  duet  from  Mercadante. 

"  Mr.  John  Graham  will  read  an  anecdote." 
Mr.  John  Graham  proved  to  be  an  old  Scotchman, 
I  should  think  sixty  years  old.  He  came  up  with 
a  book  in  his  hand,  and  said  he  was  going  to  read 


342     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

a  story,  which  should  not  have  been  called  an 
anecdote,  by  Fontenelle.  I  do  not  know  where 
he  found  it;  I  had  never  heard  it  before,  and  I 
never  heard  it  since,  but  it  was  one  of  Fontenelle's 
nice  little  stories,  with  a  clever  moral.  It  was  read 
in  a  very  pathetic  way,  and  held  the  audience  for 
Mr.  John  Graham's  five  minutes.  And  so  this 
"  variety  entertainment "  went  on,  without  the 
slightest  pause  or  breakdown.  Sometimes  the  con 
tributions  were  made  by  little  children  of  seven 
years  old,  sometimes  by  their  fathers  or  their 
grandfathers.  They  passed  from  grave  to  gay,  or 
from  gay  to  grave,  with  apparently  no  prevision 
or  arrangement  of  contrast  or  similarity,  but  by 
the  mere  accident  which  had  placed  them  upon 
the  programme.  But  what  was  important  was, 
that  they  interested  the  audience,  they  were  curi 
ously  suggestive,  and  they  must  have  started  con 
versation  and  thought  as  hardly  any  elaborate 
lecture  could  have  done. 

I  could  not  make  Spinner  understand  how  curi 
ous  I  thought  the  whole  thing.  He  did  not,  in 
deed,  look  at  it  quite  as  I  did.  He  looked  at  it 
rather  as  something  of  course,  which  had  grown  up 
quite  naturally  out  of  the  exercises  at  the  Sunday- 
school,  and  out  of  the  school  exhibitions.  He  gave 
Miss  Jane  Stevens  the  principal  credit  of  it,  and, 
after  it  was  over,  she  walked  home  with  us,  and  I 
tried  to  make  her  give  me  some  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  all  these  people  had  been  brought  to  be 
their  own  teachers  and  their  own  entertainers  upon 


The  School  343 

a  public  stage.  She  said  that  she  did  not  think  any 
body  had  planned  these  entertainments,  but  that 
they  had  grown  up  simply  enough  out  of  a  little 
society  of  boys  and  girls,  which  had  formed  itself 
when  these  young  people  were  all  five  years 
younger  than  they  were  now.  They  had  had,  as 
most  villages  had,  the  usual  run  of  fourth-rate 
lecturers  coming  up  and  charging  money  for  their 
entertainments,  till  they  had  got  tired  of  such 
things.  She  was,  in  the  meanwhile,  trying  to 
interest  them  in  the  reading-room  and  in  the 
library,  but  she  found  that  they  wanted  to  get 
together;  they  wanted  to  have  a  chance  to  talk 
and  to  walk  home  together,  and  she  had  proposed 
that  there  should  be  two  or  three  little  entertain 
ments,  conducted  by  themselves,  at  the  end  of 
every  evening.  But  it  proved  that  it  was  much 
easier  to  arrange  for  a  field  meeting  of  the  society 
once  a  fortnight  than  it  was  to  be  getting  up  little 
separate  entertainments  more  frequently,  and  grad 
ually  the  thing  had  assumed  the  shape  which  I  saw. 
Of  course,  those  who  could  sing  had  a  certain 
commodity  which  they  could  always  offer  at  these 
entertainments;  but  it  was  her  business,  and  the 
business  of  the  other  leaders  of  the  society,  to  find 
out  what  contribution  other  people  could  bring  in. 
The  men  of  a  more  mechanical  gift  were  rather 
pleased  if  something  which  they  had  read  in  the 
"  Scientific  American,"  or  in  the  other  journals, 
could  be  made  use  of  to  their  fellow-workmen.  Oc 
casionally,  a  stranger  was  at  hand ;  but,  generally 


344     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

speaking,  she  had  found  that  strangers  did  not 
understand  their  audience  as  well  as  they  under 
stood  it  themselves.  A  declamation  always  in 
terested  these  audiences,  but  it  would  not  have 
interested  them  if  it  had  been  the  declamation  of 
a  professional  reader  from  the  outside  ;  it  interested 
them  because  they  listened  to  their  own  sons  or 
their  own  daughters.  "  And  in  short,"  said  Miss 
Jane  Stevens,  "  in  all  our  effort  to  provide  amuse 
ment  for  our  winter  evenings,  there  is  nothing  on 
the  whole  which  is  so  popular  as  this  entertain 
ment  of  the  Mutual  Improvement  Society,  and  that 
you  may  guess,  now  that  you  see  it  in  the  autumn, 
and  if  I  tell  you  it  has  been  kept  up  throughout 
the  year.  For  the  rest,"  she  said,  "  we  make  quite 
a  point  of  keeping  up  the  musical  training  of  the 
village.  When  I  say  we,  I  mean  I  and  Mrs.  Spin 
ner  and  Mrs.  Workman  and  the  doctor,  and  two  or 
three  other  people,  on  whom  the  stress  of  the 
effort  comes ;  but  with  every  year  we  have  more 
and  more  helpers.  Mr.  Spinner  will  tell  you  that 
we  have  quite  the  beginning  of  a  little  band.  You 
heard  how  well  those  two  girls  played,  and  how  well 
that  quartette  of  boys  sang ;  and  really,  last  winter, 
our  six  or  eight  concerts  were  not  only  a  pleasure  to 
those  who  heard,  but  were  really  creditable  to  the 
'  performers."  I  asked  her  whether  I  had  now 
found  out  the  secret  of  the  high  platform  in  her 
schoolroom,  and  she  said  I  had.  She  said  that 
when  they  did  not  think  they  should  have  a  large 
audience,  the  children  felt  more  at  home  in  the 


The  School  345 

schoolroom,  and  that  she  had  many  a  time  met 
small  companies  of  them  there,  when  they  should 
never  have  thought  of  announcing  an  entertain 
ment  in  the  vestry  of  the  church.  "But  here," 
said  she,  "  we  can  act  charades,  we  can  speak 
dialogues,  we  can  tell  stories.  Why,  I  have  read 
them  half  the  *  Arabian  Nights '  here,  when  they 
were  sewing  or  knitting,  or  the  boys  were  drawing 
at  the  table  yonder.  Indeed,  they  are  never  more 
pleased  than  they  are  to  have  what  they  call  an 
evening  in  the  schoolhouse ;  but  that  is  purely  an 
informal  thing,  as  they  might  meet  for  an  even 
ing  party  at  Mr.  Spinner's  house,  or  at  Mr. 
Workman's." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOURS   OF  WORK 

MR.  SPINNER  explained  to  me  their  experi 
ment  about  the   hours  of  work  in  a  long 
conversation,  of  which  I  took  full  notes  at  the  time. 

"  You  will  easily  see  that  matters  of  some  diffi 
culty  under  any  other  system  of  management  settle 
into  matters  of  detail  with  us,  and  adjust  them 
selves. 

"Workman  and  I  had  both  been  anxious  and 
interested  in  eight-hour  plans.  But  we  knew 
enough  to  know  that  if  one  State  in  America  passed 
an  eight-hour  law,  and  the  next  did  not,  the  result 
would  be  simply  the  driving  factories  and  workmen 
across  the  border,  and  that  nobody  would  gain 
anything.  So  that,  though  I  have  agitated  a  good 
deal  of  that  thing  in  general,  I  had  never  seen  any 
good  chance  in  detail.  Our  system  here  differs 
from  anything  I  had  heard  of,  and  it  came  to  us,  as 
such  things  do,  rather  by  accident  than  studied 
design. 

"  I  was  in  New  York,  —  it  was  in  April,  —  the 
end  of  April,  —  and  I  met  a  jobber  there  whom  I 


Hours  of  Work  347 

had  not  seen  before,  a  Boston  man  named  Atkins. 
He  took  a  fancy  to  some  goods  he  had  bought 
from  an  agent  and  made  an  appointment  to  see 
me.  He  told  me  that  his  people — some  tailors 
he  dealt  with  —  liked  the  goods,  and  he  wanted  to 
know  how  large  a  lot  I  could  send  him  steadily  for 
six  months.  I  figured  on  it  a  little,  and  told  him. 
I  saw  he  was  disappointed,  —  a  little  annoyed,  I 
thought.  It  was  the  first  intimation  he  had  had  that 
we  were  not  one  of  the  great  slam-bang  concerns, 
to  whom  a  hundred  million  pieces  are  nothing  at 
all.  When  I  saw  this,  —  I  hated  to  disappoint  a 
good  customer,  —  I  said,  '  Either  that,  —  or  twice 
that.' 

"  He  asked  what  I  meant,  and  I  said  I  would 
light  up,  and  run  two  sets  of  hands. 

"Well,  he  did  not  care  what  I  did.  If  I  had  set 
the  mill  afire,  he  would  not  have  cared,  so  his 
tailors  were  suited.  He  accepted  my  first  price, 
and  I  came  home  a  good  deal  frightened,  to  tell 
Workman  and  the  rest  what  I  had  done.  I  do  not 
run  this  mill  by  caucus.  No,  sir  !  I  do  as  I  choose, 
and  make  the  plans ;  and  other  men  take  their  parts, 
and  the  plans  come  out  as  well  as  they  can.  But 
this  time  I  did  call  the  heads  of  rooms  into  my 
counting-room,  —  what  you  would  call  '  foremen/ 
—  and  I  said  that  we  had  a  chance  to  double  profit 
if  we  would  double  work,  —  and  that  I  had  done 
this  thing.  But  I  said  I  hated  night  work.  It  was 
demoralizing ;  it  was  bad  for  the  men  and  women 
engaged ;  and  the  work  itself  was  bad  when  it  was 


348      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

done.  I  said  that  if  we  had  won  any  credit  with 
these  unknown  tailors,  it  had  been  by  doing  work  a 
little  better  than  other  people  did,  and  that  we 
should  very  soon  lose  that  credit  if  we  did  not 
keep  up  to  the  standard  of  the  goods  they  had  re 
ceived  from  us.  Then  it  was  that,  on  a  hint  from 
one  of  the  men,  we  tried,  rather  as  an  experiment, 
the  system  on  which  we  have  run  this  mill  ever 
since.  There  is  a  certain  freemasonry  about 
weavers  and  spinners.  They  know  of  other  weavers 
and  spinners,  just  as  jewellers  know  of  other  jew 
ellers,  and  printers  of  other  printers.  I  gave  out 
word  that,  beginning  with  a  fortnight  from  the  next 
Monday,  we  were  going  for  the  summer  on  the 
eight-hour  principle.  At  the  same  time,  I  gave  out 
word  that  the  mill  would  open  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  that  the  people  who  came  to 
work  then  would  be  dismissed  at  twelve  for  that 
day.  There  was  not  to  be  any  cessation  of  the 
work,  however.  The  power  was  to  be  kept  on  and 
the  machinery  kept  running,  and  another  set  of 
hands  would  come  in  at  twelve  and  work  till  eight 
in  the  evening.  I  do  not  believe  the  thing  could 
have  been  done  so  easily  in  a  large  establishment 
as  it  was  with  us.  But  the  men  and  women  wrote 
all  up  and  down  the  valley,  to  friends  that  were 
in  other  mills,  who  wanted  to  make  an  easy  sum 
mer  of  it,  and  before  my  fortnight  was  over,  I  had 
people  enough  trooping  in  here,  who  wanted  to  be 
taken  on  this  rather  luxurious  arrangement.  You 
will  see  yourself  that  the  trouble  is  in  the  inspec- 


Hours  of  Work  349 

tion  of  the  work  more  than  it  is  the  doing  of  the 
work.  Nobody  likes  to  be  responsible  for  work 
done  in  his  room  of  which  he  did  not  see  every 
detail ;  but  the  heads  of  rooms  managed  that  after 
a  fashion.  They  worked  much  more  than  eight 
hours,  and  they  had  head  men  of  their  own,  whom 
they  liked,  and  in  whom  they  had  some  confidence, 
whom  they  put  in  charge  in  their  absence.  Then, 
as  you  will  easily  see,  under  our  principle,  whore 
each  man  has  something  of  the  interest  of  an 
owner,  there  is  a  great  deal  more  mutual  oversight 
than  there  would  be  in  a  room  where  everything 
was  cut-throat  and  every  spinner  was  trying  to  do 
as  little  as  he  could,  so  he  could  only  be  paid  for 
doing  more.  Then  you  would  find  that  a  girl  who 
tended  a  frame,  made,  by  methods  known  to  her 
self,  some  private  arrangement,  so  that  another  girl 
whom  she  knew  —  perhaps  her  sister  or  some 
friend  of  hers,  somebody  who  lived  in  the  same 
house  with  her  —  should  tend  that  same  frame  in 
the  afternoon.  There  is  not  much  sentiment  about 
a  spinning-frame,  but  there  is  some,  and  a  girl 
would  not  like  to  come  in  in  the  morning  and  find 
things  amiss,  when  an  entire  stranger  had  been 
running  her  machine,  while  she  would  be  good- 
natured  enough  about  it  if  the  person  who  had  run 
it  was  her  own  prot/gfa,  or  in  some  way  was  her 
friend. 

"  So  it  was  that  for  that  summer  we  ran  this  mill 
sixteen  hours  where  we  had  run  it  ten  hours  before. 
It  did  not  quite  double  the  time,  but,  in  truth,  al- 


350     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

though  it  did  not  quite  double  the  work,  it  came 
nearer  it  than  I  expected.  We  had  not  the  diffi 
culty  which  everybody  told  me  we  should  have,  of 
the  machinery  getting  out  of  order,  because  nobody 
was  responsible  for  it.  It  ended  in  our  holding  a 
person  responsible  for  a  piece  of  cloth  who  began 
that  piece.  This  was  not  strictly  fair,  but  it  was  so 
evident  that  there  must  be  some  rule  about  it,  that 
everybody  accepted  that  rule.  In  point  of  fact, 
the  cloth  stood  inspection  remarkably  well,  and, 
after  a  little  fuss  at  the  beginning,  I  never  found 
that  anybody  pretended  that  he  could  tell  the  dif 
ference  between  work  which  was  done  in  the  after 
noon  and  work  which  was  done  in  the  morning,  or 
vice  versa. 

"  I  suppose  there  was  a  difference,  but  it  was 
one  of  those  minute  kinds  of  differences  which  you 
lawyers  say  the  law  does  not  care  about.  The  up 
shot  of  it  all  was  that  I  held  my  contract  with  this 
Boston  man,  who  has  been  one  of  our  best  cus 
tomers  ever  since. 

"  But  when  it  came  to  the  first  of  November,  we 
stopped  this  double  business.  In  the  first  place, 
our  contract  was  up,  and  in  the  second  place,  I 
and  Workman  and  all  the  best  heads  of  rooms 
were  resolute  that  we  would  not  have  any  night 
work.  Of  course,  by  the  first  of  November,  we 
were  burning  a  good  deal  of  oil,  morning  and 
night,  —  that  was  before  we  got  in  our  electric  plant, 
—  and  the  oil  was  an  expense.  It  happened  that 
year  that  I  had  just  as  lief  run  light  as  not.  I  was 


Hours  of  Work  3  5 1 

satisfied  that  the  country  was  making  more  goods 
than  it  could  sell,  and  I  did  not  want  to  be  found 
with  an  overstock  in  the  spring.  The  men  and 
women  both  had  got  used  to  the  eight  hours'  work, 
and  I  told  them  all  that  I  proposed  to  try  as  an 
experiment  to  run  this  mill,  for  the  next  four 
months,  at  only  eight  hours'  time.  This  meant, 
you  see,  beginning  after  it  was  broad  daylight,  and 
ending  at  sundown,  or  sometimes  before.  We 
made  the  saving  in  oil,  which  is  something;  we 
made  some  saving,  I  suppose,  though  not  much, 
in  fuel ;  and  the  people  made  a  great  deal  of  sav 
ing,  in  temper.  I  lost  some  workmen,  —  there  is 
no  doubt  of  that.  They  went  off  where  they  could 
get  more  money ;  for  practically,  all  our  people  are 
paid  by  the  piece,  and  of  course  a  man  cannot 
make  so  many  pieces  of  woollen  cloth  in  forty- 
eight  hours  as  he  can  in  sixty.  It  is  all  nonsense 
to  pretend  that  he  can.  But  he  makes  more  than 
forty-eight  sixtieths;  he  makes  more  than  eight 
tenths  of  it.  When  his  mind  is  set  to  it,  and  he  is 
determined  to  drive  things,  and  he  has  time  to 
keep  his  machinery  in  good  order,  and  does  not 
mind  staying  a  little  before  and  after  work  to  see 
to  that,  his  eight  hours  are  worth  more  to  him  than 
when  he  is  in  a  hurry  to  leave  his  work  as  soon  as 
it  is  done,  and  is  only  eager  to  come  in  late  in 
the  morning.  You  will  say  that  this  is  an  advan 
tage  which  wears  off  after  people  have  been  used 
to  the  eight-hour  system.  All  I  can  say  is,  it  does 
not  wear  off  with  us.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find 


352      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

that  these  people  regard  their  machinery  a  good 
deal  as  you  regard  a  horse  which  has  got  to  do  so 
much  work  for  you.  You  would  like  to  have  the 
horse  in  as  good  order  as  he  can  be  in,  and  even 
if  you  have  to  take  care  of  him  yourself,  you  would 
rather  do  that  than  have  him  fail  you  when  you 
are  in  the  saddle  or  going  over  the  hills. 

"What  we  have  settled  down  on,  then,  is  eight 
hours'  time  from  the  first  of  November  to  the  first 
of  March  every  year,  and  during  that  period  we 
give  a  full  hour  for  dinner.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
people  would  like  it  all  the  year  round.  I  think 
that  in  the  summer  men  would  have  a  feeling  that 
they  were  wasting  time,  and  that  they  would  leave 
us,  and  go  off  to  places  where  they  could  get  more 
money  in  the  day  or  more  money  in  the  week. 
But  the  human  mind  is  so  formed  that  people  do 
like  variety.  It  is  just  as  a  woman  wants  to  move 
her  bedstead  once  in  six  months,  and  is  sure 
she  makes  more  room  every  time  she  moves  it. 
These  people  are  glad  when  the  first  of  November 
comes  and  the  hours  of  work  are  radically  changed ; 
and  they  are  just  as  glad  when  the  first  of  March 
comes,  and  they  are  changed  again.  It  gives  us, 
as  you  will  see,  a  good  chance  for  our  evening 
school,  of  which  we  make  a  good  deal;  and  it 
gives  a  good  chance  for  our  evening  entertain 
ments,  which  are  very  good  for  keeping  up  the 
moral  life  of  the  people.  It  throws  men  more  into 
the  library  and  reading-room  than  it  would  if  they 
were  tired,  and,  in  short,  I  think  it  a  very  good 


Hours  of  Work  353 

arrangement  for  the  summer,  and  I  am  disposed 
to  think  that  the  men  agree  with  me. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  remember  a  droll  paper  there 
is  of  Franklin's,  about  his  discovering  that  it  was 
light  in  Paris  three  or  four  hours  before  people  got 
out  of  bed.  I  remember  a  man  I  knew,  who  went 
to  Spain  on  business,  told  me  how  much  surprised, 
not  to  say  amused,  he  was  when  he  saw,  in  the 
city  of  Madrid,  the  masons  were  at  work  before 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  a  house  opposite 
his  hotel ;  and  he  saw  the  other  side  of  it  when  he 
saw  that  the  same  masons  did  not  touch  a  brick 
between  half-past  eleven  in  the  middle  of  the  day 
and  half-past  three.  Well,  if  you  turn  out  with 
fifty  or  sixty  people,  as  I  have  done  again  and 
again  now  for  years,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing,  just  when  a  few  streaks  are  beginning  to  light 
up  the  eastern  sky,  it  may  be,  and  go  into  the  mill 
with  those  people,  and  all  get  to  work  just  as  it  is 
beginning  to  be  light  enough  to  go  to  work,  you 
have  a  little  that  same  feeling  that  my  friend  had 
in  Spain;  you  have  a  little  of  the  feeling  that 
Franklin  describes  in  this  paper.  You  are  a  little 
surprised  to  know  that  you  are  at  work  when  half 
the  world  is  asleep,  and  you  do  not  dislike  the  sur 
prise.  Least  of  all  do  you  dislike  it  when,  at  twelve 
o'clock,  somebody  else  comes  in  and  takes  your 
work.  You  have  the  liberty  of  a  marquis,  or  a 
duke,  or  anybody  else.  You  can  go  to  sleep  if  you 
want  to ;  you  can  read ;  you  can  go  a-fishing.  I 
dare  say  you  have  met  some  of  my  men  with  their 

23 


354     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

baskets  and  flies  upon  the  streams  that  you  have 
been  tracking.  It  does  the  man  no  harm,  you 
may  be  sure  of  that ;  and  he  comes  home,  with  his 
feet  wet,  if  you  please,  and  pretty  tired,  quite 
ready  to  go  to  bed  at  sundown,  or  before  sundown, 
that  he  may  be  at  his  work  at  four  in  the  morning. 
"  There  is  no  doubt  that  with  the  men  and  the 
women  too,  the  early-rising  watch,  for  that  is 
what  we  call  them,  is  the  more  agreeable  of  the 
two ;  so  we  change  and  change  about  when  Sunday 
comes.  Watch  A,  as  it  is  called  on  our  books, 
has  the  morning  work  for  one  week,  and  it  takes 
the  afternoon  work  in  the  next  week.  Then,  when 
the  third  week  comes,  Watch  A  has  the  morning 
again,  and  in  the  fourth  week  it  has  the  afternoon 
again,  and  we  did  not  change  this  order  of  watches 
from  the  beginning  of  the  season  till  the  end.  But 
as  to  the  men  and  women  in  the  watches,  they 
have  a  good  deal  of  liberty.  They  have  what  they 
call  their  partners ;  by  which  I  mean  that  two 
people,  as  I  have  said,  are  in  some  sort  responsible 
for  the  same  frame  or  the  same  loom,  and  if  one 
of  those  partners  wants  a  half-day  off,  and  makes  a 
bargain  with  his  partner  to  run  for  him,  we  wink 
at  it,  if  you  choose  to  call  it  '  wink  at  it ; '  we 
know  perfectly  well  that  it  is  done,  and  once  in 
a  long  while  we  permit  that  substitution.  I 
should  not,  if  I  were  the  head  of  a  room,  permit 
it  two  days  running.  Sixteen  hours'  work  is 
quite  too  much  to  be  done  two  days,  unless 
there  is  to  be  a  holiday  the  next  day.  But,  as 


Hours  of  Work  355 

you  know,  the  work  at  a  frame  or  at  a  loom  is 
not  so  much  physical  fatigue  as  it  is  a  certain 
kind  of  nervous  work;  and  once  in  a  dog's  age 
such  a  thing  as  this  may  be  permitted,  though 
it  should  never  be  encouraged.  Now  all  this,  as 
you  will  see,  links  in  with,  and  has  direct  refer 
ence  to,  the  system  of  schooling  which  we  have 
adopted  here,  which  is,  after  all,  largely  bor 
rowed  from  the  English  experience,  and  about 
which  you  had  better  talk  with  the  young  women 
who  keep  the  schools. 

"  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  footings  come  out 
from  these  rather  varied  hours.  104  days  of 
winter,  at  8  hours  each,  give  832  hours'  work. 

"  For  the  eight  months  of  spring,  summer,  and 
autumn,  the  mills  do  twice  as  much  a  day,  and 
the  result,  of  course,  of  the  eight  months,  is  four 
times  that  of  the  winter,  or  832  X  4,  equals  3,328. 

"  This  makes  4,160  hours'  work  in  a  year,  against 
3,100  hours  which  we  should  have  gained  from  310 
days'  work  on  a  ten-hour  system. 

"  The  law  of  this  State  restricts  us  to  ten  hours, 
and  if  it  did  not,  the  fact  that  other  States  are 
restricted  to  ten  hours  would  have  amounted  to 
the  same  thing.  In  the  long  run,  you  cannot  keep 
good  workmen  in  an  eleven-hour  mill,  when,  by 
going  over  the  border,  they  have  a  chance  to  work 
in  a  ten-hour  mill.  It  is  that  which  practically 
settles  these  questions,  though  there  eari  be,  of 
course,  under  our  constitution,  no  national  legisla 
tion  on  the  subject. 


356     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

"  It  ought  to  be  understood,  indeed,  that  no 
State  constitution  gives  any  right  to  the  legisla 
ture  to  fix  the  hours  of  labor  for  any  man.  The 
arrangements  for  ten-hour  systems,  or  other  such 
systems,  are  made  practically  by  legislation  for 
the  benefit  of  children,  with  regard  to  whom  it 
is  supposed  that  the  legislature  is  omnipotent. 
When  an  eight-hour  law  is  passed,  as  it  has 
been  passed,  by  Congress,  it  is  simply  a  law  pro 
viding  that  men  who  work  for  the  government 
shall  work  only  for  eight  hours  in  every  twenty- 
four.  But  the  Bill  of  Rights  in  most  States  would 
be  enough  to  show  that  a  legislature  must  not 
interfere  with  the  right  of  a  man  to  sell  in  market 
his  own  labor,  and  as  much  of  it  as  he  chooses. 
I  say  this  merely  by  the  way.  It  is  not  of  any 
great  practical  effect,  because,  practically,  most 
mills  want  to  employ  persons  who  are  under  age, 
and  if  those  persons  may,  or  indeed  must,  go  away 
at  the  end  of  ten  hours,  the  work  of  the  mill  is  so 
far  deranged  that  it  cannot  be  continued  for  eleven 
hours.  This  is  the  whole  of  our  ten-hour  statutes, 
and  indeed  the  same  is  true  with  regard  to  those 
in  England. 

"  But,  as  I  have  said,  our  arrangements  here 
were  wholly  independent  of  statute.  They  grew 
up  in  the  incidental  way  which  I  have  described, 
but  which,  for  us  who  want  to  make  the  most 
out  of  this  plant  here,  —  that  is,  out  of  these 
buildings  and  this  machinery,  —  is,  as  you  can 
see,  very  great.  We  gain  thirty-three  per  cent  in 


Hours  of  Work  357 

product  out  of  the  same  amount  of  machinery. 
Our  work-people  are  satisfied,  and  if  they  are 
satisfied,  everybody  is  satisfied.  We  pay  by  the 
piece,  as  all  mills  do,  so  that  we  pay  no  more 
for  three  thousand  hours'  work  on  our  time  cal 
endar  than  if  we  were  carrying  the  same  three 
thousand  hours  over  more  months  in  the  year. 

"  Practically,  then,  we  are  able  to  deliver  more 
goods  in  a  year  than  we  were  able  to,  or  than 
we  should  be,  if  we  worked  on  a  ten-hour  sys 
tem.  We  are  also  using  our  machinery,  not  to 
the  full  top  of  its  work,  but  for  one  third  more 
than  we  should  be  otherwise,  and  this  gives  us 
so  far  forth  a  better  chance  to  be  even  with  the 
time.  It  is  a  great  thing  for  any  manufacturer 
to  work  with  the  newest  machinery  which  the 
progress  of  invention  affords,  and  other  things 
being  equal,  there  is  therefore  a  certain  advan 
tage  in  wearing  out  a  frame  or  a  loom  in  three 
years  which  otherwise  would  have  run  four." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  CHURCH 

SUNDAY  came  around  while  I  was  at  Hampton, 
and  I  went  to  church  with  Mr.  Spinner,  his 
wife  and  family.  He  told  me  at  breakfast  that  we 
should  hear  the  Baptist  minister  from  Wentworth, 
who  was  coming  up  to  take  the  morning  service 
himself.  Mr.  Spinner  spoke  with  pleasure  of  this 
arrangement,  for  he  said  I  should  be  pleased  with 
the  sermon  and  the  service,  and  he  hoped  that 
this  gentleman  would  come  first  and  dine  with  us. 
"  He  has  not  been  here,"  said  Mr.  Spinner,  "  for  a 
year  or  two,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  show  him 
some  of  our  improvements.  He  is  a  man  who  is 
much  liked  in  the  whole  county,  and  it  is  rather  a 
matter  of  distinction  that  we  should  have  him  at 
our  little  church  here." 

He  then  told  me  of  the  basis  on  which  the 
church  had  arranged  itself,  and  seemed  to  be,  on 
the  whole,  well  pleased  that  they  had  been  able  to 
do  as  much  as  they  had  done,  although  they  had 
met  with  the  difficulties  inevitable  where  there  are 
people  coming  and  going  all  the  time,  where  many 
of  the  men  and  women  are,  if  not  irreligious,  quite 


The  Church  359 

indifferent  to  religious  arrangements,  and  where 
the  whole  community  is  so  small  that  unless  it 
unite  together  in  some  way  it  is  difficult  to  main 
tain  any  regular  church  institution. 

"  When  we  came  here,"  he  said,  "  there  was  no 
place  of  worship  here  at  all.  There  is  a  Second- 
Advent  meeting-house  three  or  four  miles  down 
the  road,  and  I  think  you  may  have  noticed,  as  you 
went  up,  a  meeting-house  which  is  almost  never 
used,  which  was  built  by  some  Seventh-Day  Baptist 
people  several  years  ago,  when  they  had  a  revival 
in  this  neighborhood.  But  they  all  moved  away, 
and  I  hardly  know  whether  their  house  is  kept  in 
repair  or  not.  At  all  events,  it  was  too  far  away 
from  us  for  us  to  make  any  use  of  it.  In  truth, 
one  of  the  reasons  of  the  failure  of  the  enterprise 
that  was  here  before  us  was  that  our  village  was 
not  large  enough  to  maintain  a  church.  The  more 
decent  workmen  would  not  come  to  a  place  where 
there  was  no  church,  and  they  had  but  a  wretched 
set  of  hands  here  at  the  very  best.  The  quality  of 
their  work-people  alone  was  enough  to  break  down 
their  mills,  if  they  had  not  broken  down  from  bad 
management,  as  in  fact  they  did.  After  we  were 
established  here,  the  better  men,  themselves,  felt 
the  need  of  doing  something  for  a  Sunday-school  or 
a  place  of  worship,  in  many  instances  where  they 
had  never  cared  for  such  things  before.  Nothing 
puts  a  man  so  much  on  his  mettle  as  being  bodily 
transplanted,  and  finding  that  there  is  no  regular 
occupation  for  Sunday,  even  if  he  have  not  been  a 


360     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

regular  church  member  himself,  and  affects  to  be 
indifferent  to  such  things.  The  Catholic  priest  at 
Wentworth  was  quite  willing  to  come  up  and  hear 
confessions,  and  carry  on  a  service  once  a  month, 
and  he  did  so  in  the  school-building,  which  the 
district  committee  were  willing  to  let  him  have  for 
this  purpose.  Different  men  put  themselves  into 
communication  with  one  and  another  of  the  minis 
ters  at  Wentworth,  to  know  whether  some  service 
could  not  be  maintained,  perhaps  on  Sunday  even 
ing,  or  perhaps  in  the  afternoon,  by  one  and 
another  person  coming  up  the  valley  from  there. 
To  these  proposals  we  had  all  sorts  of  answers,  as 
one  always  would  in  such  a  case,  but  it  seemed  to 
me  that  there  was  enough  of  a  necessity  made  out 
for  me  to  address  a  pretty  formal  letter  to  Mr. 
Nourse  on  the  subject,  and  that  letter  I  accordingly 
wrote. 

"  I  told  him  that  it  was  essential  to  a  good  manu 
facturing  establishment  to  have  the  best  workmen 
and  not  the  worst.  I  told  him  that  we  should 
never  have  the  more  decent  and  self-respecting 
workmen  if  there  were  these  difficulties  about 
worship.  I  told  him  that  it  seemed  to  me,  there 
fore,  that  the  men  who  owned  this  mill  —  and  he 
was  the  most  important  of  those  men  —  should  add 
to  the  rest  of  their  plant  here  a  church  or  meeting 
house.  That  would  show  the  men  that  they 
employed  that  they  had  an  interest  in  this  matter. 
For  the  rest,  the  men  they  employed  must  bear 
out  the  American  principle,  and  must  arrange  for 


The  Church  361 

worship  as  best  they  could ;  but  that  I  thought 
that,  without  analyzing  the  matter  too  finely,  or 
putting  too  fine  a  point  upon  things,  it  was  the 
business  of  capital  to  provide  a  place  where  this 
part  of  the  work  of  a  manufacturing  town  should 
be  carried  on. 

"  I  got  a  very  curious  answer  from  Nourse.  I 
should  like  to  show  it  to  you.  He  reminded  me 
of  the  principle  which  had  been  laid  down  in  the 
beginning ;  namely,  that  capital  was  to  have  merely 
what  we  would  call  '  the  idiot's  dividend/  and  that 
in  a  certain  sense  it  was  entitled  to  that,  while  in  a 
certain  sense  it  was  not  entitled  to  anything  more. 
'  Now/  said  he,  '  we  have  waived  all  questions  of 
sentiment  or  mutual  affection  or  of  the  interest  of 
mankind,  which  you  choose  now  to  bring  up  when 
you  discuss  the  matter  of  a  church  edifice.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  if,  half  an  hour  hence,  a  man 
comes  into  my  room  and  takes  off  his  hat  and 
asks  me  to  subscribe  for  building  a  church  in 
Honolulu  or  in  Texas,  I  may  not  do  it ;  but  I  do 
not  think  that  that  man  must  come  to  me  from 
Hampton.  In  Hampton  I  am  engaged  in  a  busi 
ness  enterprise.  I  have  been  told  that  this  busi 
ness  enterprise  could  pay  me  what  we  call  the 
idiot's  dividend.  I  feel  safe,  therefore,  about  refus 
ing  to  mix  up  a  business  enterprise  like  this  with 
my  philanthropy.  If  you,  and  the  men  who  are  at 
work  with  you,  really  think  that  a  church  is  as 
much  a  part  of  the  capital  stock  of  this  con 
cern  as  is  the  dyeing  vat,  you  ought  to  prove 


362     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

this  by  your  works.  I  own  some  dyeing  vats  in 
your  mills,  or  I  own  ninety-five  hundredths  of 
them,  and  on  my  property  in  those  vats  I  am  paid 
four  per  cent  interest.  I  will  put  up  for  you  in 
Hampton  a  meeting-house  on  exactly  those  terms. 
It  shall  be  costly  or  inexpensive,  as  you  please. 
It  shall  be  a  handsome  church,  built  of  your  own 
stone  there,  by  the  best  architect  in  New  York,  or 
it  shall  be  built  of  rough-hewn  planks,  slabs,  and 
shingles,  just  as  you  please.  It  shall  cost  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  or  it  shall  cost  five  hundred,  just 
as  you  please ;  but  the  congregation  that  worship 
in  it  on  Sunday,  and  the  people  who  use  it  for 
other  services  on  week  days,  shall  pay  me  the 
idiot's  dividend,  or  shall  pay  the  proprietors  a 
dividend,  exactly  as  they  pay  them  on  the  dye 
ing  vats.' 

"  He  said  we  might  keep  this  offer  open  for  two 
months,  and  he  would  be  bound  by  it  at  the  end 
of  the  time. 

"  I  read  this  aloud  at  a  meeting  which  we  held 
in  the  store  to  consider  it.  All  the  men  were 
pleased  with  it,  or  almost  all  of  them  were.  They 
said  it  meant  business,  and  they  were  rather  flat 
tered  by  the  half  confidence  that  it  placed  in  them. 
They  appointed  a  committee  to  go  to  Wentworth 
and  Tenterden.  Eventually,  the  committee  went 
as  far  as  New  Haven  to  see  some  plans,  and  it 
all  ended  in  our  building  this  place  which  we  are 
going  to  to-day.  We  got  a  plan  from  the  Meth 
odists;  they  publish  some  very  good  plans  and 


The  Church  363 

some  very  cheap  plans,  and  we  never  had  to  pay 
an  architect  a  cent,  because  they  furnished  us, 
very  good-naturedly,  the  plan  which  we  have 
adopted.  The  building  was  made  from  our  lum 
ber  here,  and  it  cost  a  little  inside  of  three  thou 
sand  dollars.  It  stands  on  our  books  as  having  cost 
twenty-nine  hundred  dollars.  In  this  case  we  pay 
the  idiot's  dividend,  exactly  as  we  pay  it  on  the 
other  capital  stock  of  the  concern.  In  fact,  it  is 
an  enlargement  of  the  capital  stock  by  twenty- 
nine  hundred  dollars,  and  Mr.  Nourse  owns  the 
whole  of  this,  whereas  he  only  owns  ninety-five 
per  cent  of  the  rest  of  the  stock.  You  see,  then, 
that  whoever  occupies  this  church  has  to  pay  one 
hundred  and  sixteen  dollars  a  year  for  rent  to  him. 
They  also  have  to  pay  something — not  much  — 
for  its  insurance.  One  hundred  and  sixteen  dol 
lars  a  year  is  rather  more  than  two  dollars  a  week ; 
and  the  committee  who  had  it  in  charge  deter 
mined  very  soon  that  the  rent  of  the  church  and 
of  the  vestry,  for  any  and  every  purpose  for  which 
it  was  used,  should  be  one  dollar  a  day.  They 
thought,  and  it  has  proved  that  they  thought 
rightly,  that  they  should  be  almost  certain  of  rent 
ing  the  church  fifty-two  times  in  the  year  for 
Sunday  services.  Thus  they  would  have  fifty-two 
dollars.  Then  they  thought,  and  as  it  proved  they 
thought  rightly,  that  there  would  be  so  many 
occasions  when  the  vestry  was  wanted  for  a  public 
hall,  as  you  saw  it  was  wanted  the  other  night 
when  they  had  the  entertainment  there,  that  they 


364     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

should  get  from  that  sixty  or  seventy  dollars  more. 
In  point  of  fact,  they  have  always  had  enough  to 
keep  the  building  in  repair,  keep  it  warm,  and  to 
pay  for  their  lights  in  the  evening.  The  occupa 
tion  evenings  costs  a  little  more  than  the  occu 
pation  on  Sunday,  because  the  lights  have  to  be 
provided  for;  but  we  have  water  power  running 
to  waste  here,  so  that  since  we  got  in  our  electric 
plant,  the  light  really  costs  them  very  little,  and 
indeed,  blessings  to  kerosene,  it  never  cost  them 
a  great  deal." 

Accordingly,  when  Sunday  afternoon  came,  the 
family  mustered  in  great  force  for  the  service. 
Mr.  Sherlock  arrived  late  —  but  came.  I  had 
gone  with  the  children  and  my  host  himself  to  a 
Sunday-school  in  the  morning,  which  was  largely 
attended  by  grown  people  as  well  as  children,  and 
required  the  use  of  many  parts  of  the  church 
itself,  as  well  as  of  the  large  and  small  rooms  in 
the  vestry.  Spinner  explained  to  me  as  we  went, 
that  for  a  service  with  a  sermon  all  the  committees 
found  it  more  convenient,  as  they  had  no  settled 
minister,  to  take  the  afternoon,  or,  as  on  this  occa 
sion,  the  afternoon  and  the  evening.  For,  with 
this  arrangement,  they  could  often  secure  the 
presence  and  service  of  clergymen  whom  they 
liked  to  hear,  from  the  large  towns  in  the  neigh 
borhood,  who  could  not  arrange  to  be  absent  from 
their  own  pulpits  in  the  morning.  This  Mr.  Sher 
lock,  who  was  to  preach,  was  a  general  favorite. 
He  would  not  have  come  to  them  at  all,  however, 


The  Church  365 

had  he  been  needed  in  the  morning,  for  he  was 
then  engaged  in  the  service  of  his  own  church. 

Spinner's  son  George  and  his  daughter  Pru 
dence  had  both  been  trained,  as  it  proved,  to  write 
in  shorthand,  and  they  told  me  that  they  had  notes 
of  most  of  the  sermons  which  had  been  preached 
in  the  church  now  for  two  or  three  years.  When 
I  found  that  Mr.  Sherlock  spoke  without  a  manu 
script,  I  was  glad  that  the  young  people  were  pre 
serving  his  sermon.  For  thus  I  was  able  to  bring 
away  what  is  a  good  report  of  it,  which  I  made 
them  write  out  for  me.  I  copy  it  here,  because 
he  had  caught,  very  thoroughly,  the  notion  which 
was  at  the  bottom  of  the  various  plans  at  Hamp 
ton,  and  the  sermon  states  some  principles  of  that 
notion,  as  I  may  not  succeed  in  stating  them 
elsewhere. 

The  text  was :  "  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens, 
and  so  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ." 

I  think  you  must  have  noticed,  when  I  read  the  New 
Testament  lesson,  that  in  the  same  appeal  Paul  bids 
every  man  bear  his  own  burden.  It  is  almost  in  one 
breath  that  he  says  that  every  man  must  bear  his  own 
burden  and  that  every  man  must  bear  his  brother's  bur 
den.  Now  it  will  not  do  for  a  moment  to  suppose  that 
this  is  a  matter  of  thoughtless  rhetoric,  —  or  that  these 
two  injunctions  may  be  separated  out  from  each  other, 
and  taken  each  for  itself  alone.  You  will  not  find  any 
thoughtless  rhetoric  in  this  man's  injunctions,  —  no,  not 
when  he  is  in  the  highest  heaven.  This  man  Paul  is  a 
master  of  life.  He  understood  the  great  science  of  living, 


366     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

through  and  through.  Because  he  understands  it, — 
because  he  knows  what  he  is  talking  about,  —  though  he 
has  only  a  few  years  for  his  work,  —  though  he  goes 
from  place  to  place,  now  as  a  prisoner,  now  as  a  travel 
ling  tent-maker,  —  he  changes  all  Europe  from  what  it 
was  to  what  it  is.  He  makes  the  Western  World  over, 
because  he  has  the  practical  power  to  inspire  it  with  the 
Divine  Life.  Such  a  man  does  not  talk  by  accident,  or 
for  immediate  effect.  He  has  a  principle  beneath  every 
word  he  uses.  And  you  and  I  must  not  take  one  of  his 
practical  injunctions  without  allying  it  with  the  others, 
and  studying  them  together. 

You  will  find,  then,  all  through,  that  this  great  leader 
of  men  speaks  as  a  workman  speaks  to  other  workmen. 
He  tells  us  always,  —  what  in  one  central  text  he  says  in 
one  epigram,  —  that  we  are  fellow-workmen  together  with 
God.  As  the  Saviour  had  said,  "My  father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  I  work."  Paul  takes  it  for  granted  that  all 
who  make  any  claim  to  take  the  Saviour's  name  mean  to 
work  in  the  world  into  which  they  were  born.  They 
are  not  to  dream  out  their  salvation,  nor  to  talk  their 
salvation  into  each  other,  nor  to  argue  it  out,  nor  to 
buy  it  with  a  great  price,  —  they  are  to  work  it  out.  He 
speaks  as  a  workman  to  workmen.  And  he  takes  care 
all  along  that  they  shall  know  that  he  is  a  workman,  and 
that  he  is  not  ashamed  of  his  work.  "  Mine  own  hands 
ministered  to  my  necessities,"  he  says,  and  never  fails  to 
remind  them  that,  by  example  of  daily  industry,  he  has 
illustrated  what  he  means,  when  he  says  so  quaintly, 
and  even  sharply,  that  every  man  must  mind  his  own 
business. 

Speaking  in  this  way,  as  a  man  who  knows  what  work 
is,  who  has  been  bred  to  a  good  trade  at  which  he  can 


The  Church  367 

earn  a  living,  Paul,  the  most  practical  of  leaders  of  men, 
is  engaged  in  this  chapter  in  telling  these  people  the 
wonders  of  the  great  word  "  Together ;  "  how  this  little 
handful  of  men  is  to  rule  and  govern  the  world,  because 
no  man  is  alone,  but  We  act,  —  made  perfect  in  union, 
or,  as  the  Saviour  said,  made  perfect  in  one.  Of  this 
instruction,  the  text  is  the  central  statement,  as  you  saw 
when  I  read  the  passage.  But  he  is  wholly  determined 
that  each  man  shall  know  his  personal  responsibility.  No 
man  is  to  undertake  that  vague,  smoky,  general,  noisy 
philanthropy,  which  disgraces  the  word  philanthropy,  — 
in  which  a  religious  tramp  announces  that  he  will  save  the 
world,  when  he  cannot  say  what  is  his  own  special  place 
and  part  in  the  world's  salvation.  Paul  will  not  let  any 
man  think  he  can  sing  well  enough  to  sing  in  the  chorus, 
unless  he  can  sing  well  enough  when  it  is  his  place  to 
sing  a  solo.  And  no  man  is  to  come  to  him  and  say, 
"  Paul,  I  should  like  a  commission  to  go  out  into  the 
world  and  reform  the  world,  and  quicken  it  with  a  new 
life,"  unless  that  man  can  show  Paul  that  he  has  a  work 
of  his  own  that  he  can  do,  —  has  a  place  of  his  own  that 
he  fills  well,  —  or  as  he  puts  it  in  better  words,  unless  this 
man  shows  that  he  can  bear  his  own  burden. 

No  sceptic  or  scoffer  made  any  point  by  turning  on 
Paul  after  one  of  his  addresses,  to  say,  "  Who  are  you  to 
be  lecturing  us  about  industry,  or  sobriety,  or  patience  in 
work  ?  You  are  hearing  your  own  voice,  and  you  like  to 
hear  it.  Try  hard  work,  and  see  how  you  like  that." 
No  man  said  that  to  Paul,  for  they  knew  what  the  answer 
would  be.  "Who  am  I?  I  am  a  tent-maker.  Come 
down  to  Narrow  Street,  and  see  if  there  is  better  tent- 
cloth  in  Corinth  than  I  have  there,  —  or  if  there  is  a 
better  shelter-tent  than  I  made  yesterday."  He  knew 


368      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

how  to  bear  his  own  burden,  and  so  he  knew  how  to  bear 
the  burdens  of  the  world. 


I  will  take  another  occasion,  if  your  committee  are  so 
good  as  to  ask  me  to  Hampton  again,  to  show  by  sepa 
rate  passages  from  Paul's  letters  how  distinct  is  the  in 
struction  he  gives  to  any  young  workingman  who  wants 
to  succeed,  and  means  to  succeed,  as  to  the  method  of 
his  daily  life.  He  does  not  simply  say  that  every  man 
shall  bear  his  own  burden,  but,  in  one  practical  instruction 
and  another,  he  shows  him  how.  But  not  to-day.  Our 
business  to-day  is  with  the  other  text :  how  a  man  shall 
do  his  part  as  a  member  of  the  common  family  —  what 
people  now  call  the  community.  How  shall  a  man  show 
his  public  spirit  —  do  his  share  in  the  public  or  common 
life  ?  How  and  where  shall  a  Christian  man  appear  as  a 
good  citizen  of  the  State  or  as  a  good  member  of  the 
Church? 

First,  and  very  briefly,  because  this  is  to  be  the  whole 
subject  of  that  other  sermon,  —  let  him  know  how  to  do 
his  own  work  well.  Let  him  be  no  pretender.  How 
shall  he  offer  himself  for  the  world's  service,  if  his  own 
house  is  not  in  order?  I  am  greatly  interested  in  the 
men  and  women  who  help  Paul.  There  is  a  man  of 
whom  we  know  nothing  but  that  he  was  once  Paul's 
amanuensis,  and  that  Paul  was  fond  of  him.  "  I,  Tertius, 
who  wrote  this  epistle,"  he  says  with  a  certain  pride. 
There  was  a  man  who  knew  how  to  write.  He  knew 
how  to  spell  well.  Paul  was  troubled  with  his  weak  eyes, 
they  say,  and  was  glad  when  Tertius  volunteered.  But  he 
would  not  have  been  glad  had  Tertius  been  a  pretender, 
—  if  he  wrote  a  careless  hand,  or  if  his  Greek  grammar 
was  bad,  or  if  he  spelled  badly.  In  truth,  Tertius  knew 


The  Church  369 

how  to  write  as  well  as  Paul  knew  how  to  make  tents. 
He  wrote  well,  —  well  enough  to  make  the  first  draft  of 
the  letter  to  the  Romans.  And  his  name  is  presented  to 
every  man  who  has  his  Bible,  as  the  name  of  a  faithful 
fellow,  who  has  served  mankind,  for  century  after  cen 
tury,  through  all  time,  because  he  knew  how  to  do  one 
thing  well,  and  because  he  was  willing  to  consecrate  that 
talent  to  the  common  weal. 

Now  keep  that  example  in  mind  all  along.  Then  you 
can  carry  into  the  notion  of  common  work,  —  the  work 
of  the  Common  Weal,  or,  as  Paul  would  say,  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  —  this  first  necessity  that  it  is  clean 
work,  work  well  done.  It  is  not  slop-work.  It  is 
good  journey-work,  as  our  fathers  used  to  say.  Take 
for  a  second  thought  the  eternal  truth  which  Paul  falls 
back  to  so  eagerly,  —  that,  if  one  member  be  alive  and 
strong,  the  whole  body  will  have  a  better  chance  to  be 
alive  and  strong.  Once  and  again  he  falls  back  upon 
that  fable  which  the  Roman  senator  addressed  to  the 
Roman  people,  —  the  body  cannot  be  well  unless  each 
hand  and  eye  and  foot  is  well.  Life  in  the  parts,  — 
quick,  tingling  life,  —  so  that  there  may  be  life  in  the 
whole,  —  vigorous,  strong,  eternal. 

How  many  men  I  have  known,  —  how  many  men  you 
have  known,  —  who  had  even  gained  for  themselves  a 
sort  of  public  reputation  for  this  care  of  the  business  of 
the  community,  who  have  so  utterly  neglected  Paul's 
personal  directions  that  they  cannot  take  any  care  of  their 
own.  Such  a  man,  by  some  political  turn,  is  appointed 
a  consul  abroad,  or  a  secretary  of  legation.  He  studies 
international  affairs,  he  devotes  himself  to  the  public  busi 
ness  in  these  lines.  By  and  by,  there  is  a  political  over 
turn  at  home,  and  the  government  will  not  renew  his 

24 


370     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

commission.  He  has  to  come  home.  He  is  apt  to 
complain  that  he  is  left  out  in  the  cold.  Then  you 
begin  to  ask  what  he  is  fit  for ;  "  What  did  he  do  when 
he  was  at  home?"  That  was  the  question  which  the 
Connecticut  farmer  asked  the  French  marshal,  Rocham- 
beau.  And  you  find  that  at  home  he  did  nothing  but 
manage  primary  meetings  and  attend  county  conventions, 
and,  in  other  fashions,  take  care  of  elections.  He  has  no 
trade  or  calling  in  which  he  was  a  master.  I  suppose 
this  to  be  what  Paul  would  have  called  failing  to  bear 
his  own  burden.  What  follows  ?  Why,  when  the  coun 
try,  wisely  or  unwisely,  turns  him  out  from  its  service, 
there  is,  alas  !  no  place  left  where  he  is  to  fall. 

But  I  do  not  mean  to  speak  slightly  of  what  this  man 
has  done  in  attending  primary  meetings,  in  going  to 
county  conventions,  and  in  preparing  for  elections.  I 
hope  no  man  hears  me  who  does  not  go  to  primary  meet 
ings  and  who  is  not  willing  to  take  his  share  of  duty  in 
county  conventions,  and  who  does  not  diligently  and 
with  prayer  prepare  for  every  election  of  the  town  or  of 
the  State.  I  do  say,  that  no  men  can  rightly  attend,  even 
to  such  little  public  duties  as  that,  and  that  no  man  can 
have  the  power  in  such  service  that  a  man  should  seek, 
who  has  not  shown  that  he  can  wisely  and  well  mind  his 
own  business,  keep  his  own  accounts,  pay  his  own  debts, 
stay  out  of  debt,  and  earn  an  honorable  reputation  as  a 
manly  workman. 

Such  a  man  as  that  has  flung  away  his  life  in  trying  to 
care  for  the  State,  while  he  cannot  show  that  there  is  one 
part  of  its  separate  duties  that  he  can  do  well.  He  can 
not  bear  his  own  burdens,  because  he  has  all  his  life 
thought  he  was  bearing  other  people's.  Alas !  the  other 
people  do  not  agree  with  him  !  They  think  he  never  bore 


The  Church  371 

theirs.  And  this  I  say  only  by  illustration.  I  have  to 
speak  of  what  affects  us  here  more  directly.  I  have  to 
speak  of  the  welfare  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  as  an  organ 
ized  institution.  And  I  am  not  speaking  of  this  particular 
church  of  yours,  —  or,  may  I  say,  yours  and  ours  ?  For  I 
do  not  know  you  personally  as  well  as  I  wish  I  did,  and 
so  I  have  no  knowledge  from  which  I  can  speak  person 
ally  of  your  affairs.  But,  in  many  churches  —  and  a  pity 
it  is  to  have  to  say  so  —  there  are  brethren,  yes,  and  there 
are  sisters,  who  are  prominent  in  the  business  of  the 
Church  as  a  church,  who  cannot  take  care  of  their  own 
business.  It  seems  as  if  they  took  the  time  for  the  affairs 
of  the  organization  which  they  would  have  better  spent 
on  their  own  affairs.  Or,  looking  the  other  way,  it  seems 
as  if,  because  they  found  nothing  to  do  in  their  own 
business,  they  thought  they  would  undertake  the  Master's 
business  rather  than  do  nothing.  Now  he  wants  no  such 
recruits.  He  wants  whole  men  and  whole  women.  He 
wants  those  who  can  do  a  good  day's  work,  and  do  it 
well.  He  wants  those  who  have  been  faithful  in  few 
things,  —  and  it  is  those,  and  those  only,  whom  he  pro 
motes  to  the  charge  of  many  things.  It  is  the  faithful, 
industrious,  yes,  and  successful  saint,  who  has  used  the 
talent  which  was  given  him,  who  has  rightly  and  well 
handled  the  pound  intrusted  to  him,  to  whom  there 
comes,  to  surprise  his  modesty,  that  noblest  welcome 
ever  spoken,  "Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 
And  no  man  can  pretend  to  tell  what  is  the  injury  which 
has  been  inflicted  on  the  Church  by  the  profane  interfer 
ence  in  the  work  it  has  to  do,  of  those  whom  men  saw 
incapable  of  doing  their  own  work.  Their  words  are 
vain ;  their  appeals  are  vain  ;  their  counsels  are  vain  ;  — 
because  men  judge  them  by  their  fruits.  They  have  not 


372      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

borne  their  own  burdens  well,  and  so  it  is  that,  in  this 
most  important  affair  of  all,  it  is  certain  that  they  cannot 
bear  their  brothers'. 

Now,  by  the  side  of  that  failure,  —  of  the  man  whom  I 
described  just  now,  the  man  who  put  his  trust  in  princes, 
and  found  princes  failed  him,  —  I  will  tell  you  the  story 
of  another  failure.  It  is  the  man  who  stitches  and 
hammers  at  shoes  on  his  bench,  —  ten,  twelve  hours  a 
day,  perhaps,  —  or  who  stands  behind  his  counter  from 
early  morning  till  late  evening,  or  who  drudges  in  the 
same  self-imposed  slavery  at  the  forge  or  the  grindstone, 
and  does  nothing  else,  does  nothing  larger.  He  does 
not  bear  his  brother's  burdens.  He  does  not  care  for 
the  common  weal.  He  will  let  his  children  go  to  the 
public  school ;  but  he  will  not  serve  on  the  district  com 
mittee.  He  will  let  his  wife  take  a  book  from  the  public 
library;  but  he  will  not  be  a  trustee  or  a  director.  He 
is  willing  to  walk  on  the  sidewalk  and  drive  on  the  road ; 
but  he  will  not  be  a  county  commissioner,  or  a  selectman, 
or  a  roadmaster.  He  is  willing  to  have  the  government 
bring  him  his  letters  and  his  newspapers,  and  to  pay  for 
that  service  not  half  what  it  costs ;  but  he  is  not  willing 
to  go  to  an  election,  or  to  compel  the  right  choice  so  far 
as  his  power  goes.  "He  does  not  care  for  politics." 
^Esop  would  have  been  glad  to  put  such  a  man  in  a  fable. 
But  even  ALsop  could  not  find  a  fox  or  a  hedgehog  who 
was  so  mean.  This  is  the  man  who  tells  you,  "  I  care 
for  nobody, — no,  not  I!"  —  and  he  deserves  to  have 
the  other  half  of  the  song  come  true,  which  says  that 
"nobody  cares  for  me." 

Mr.  Sherlock  made  a  long  pause  after  this 
description  of  selfishness,  and  then,  addressing 


The  Church  373 

himself  personally  to  the  men  in  front  of  him,  he 
said :  — 

I  say  all  this  here  because  I  think  you  workmen  at 
Hampton  have  even  more  distinct  duties  in  these  lines 
than  the  general  run  of  workmen  in  America.  I  declare 
to  you,  that  I  think  this  system  of  manufacture  which  you 
have  started  here  is  going  to  stand  or  fall,  to  succeed  or 
to  fail,  according  to  the  answers  which  the  men  in  this 
church  now  —  the  hundred  and  fifty  of  you  who  are 
workers  and  voters  and  thinkers  —  make  to  these  two 
demands  of  Paul.  You  have  started  a  system  in  which 
the  workman  is  the  capitalist  in  part,  and  in  which  the 
workman  shares  as  he  ought  to  share  in  the  ups  and 
downs  of  every  honorable  adventure.  There  is  no  act  of 
Congress  or  of  Parliament  that  any  man  should  grow  rich. 
There  is  a  promise  of  the  Eternal  God  that  the  community 
which  lives  by  his  law,  and  seeks  him,  shall  find  him. 
More  than  this  —  he  has  said  that  the  community  which 
seeks  him  and  finds  his  Kingdom,  shall  have  these  little 
things,  such  as  meat  and  drink  and  clothing ;  they  shall 
be  added,  he  has  said,  to  his  other  infinite  compensations. 
But  this  community  must  live  by  his  law.  It  must  obey 
him.  It  must  be  part  of  his  Kingdom.  He  must  be 
King.  No  man  in  it  shall  live  for  himself.  They  must 
live  for  the  common  good.  Every  man  in  it  must  bear 
his  own  burden.  But  every  man  also  must  bear  his 
brother's.  I  say,  that  on  your  success  here  will  it  depend 
whether  other  mill-owners  will  try  the  same  venture, 
whether  other  workmen  will  have  the  same  opportunity. 
I  say  you  will  succeed  if  the  very  men  who  hear  me  are 
willing  to  count  themselves,  not  as  lonely  men,  but  as 
brothers  in  the  great  brotherhood,  —  as  fellow-soldiers  in 


374     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Christ's  army.  I  do  not  know  if  you  thought  of  this  when 
you  began.  I  think  perhaps  you  builded  better  than  you 
knew.  But  this  I  know  —  and  you  will  learn  —  that  your 
enterprise  will  succeed  as  fast  and  as  far  as  every  workman 
in  it  works  as  a  fellow- workman  with  God,  and  so  is  will 
ing  and  ready  to  do  his  share  of  the  building  of  God's 
Kingdom  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   PUBLIC   LIBRARY 

I  HAD  seen  in  the  co-operative  store  that  they 
had  made  all  the  arrangements  for  a  reading- 
room,  and  that  they  had  a  very  small  collection  of 
books  of  reference  which  they  used  there.  They 
said  that  they  had  had  a  more  extensive  collection 
of  books,  but  that  when  the  library  was  founded 
their  books  went  in  with  the  others  into  that  collec 
tion.  This  led  me  to  inquire  about  the  library  the 
next  morning  from  my  friend,  and  he  sent  one  of 
his  children  with  me  that  afternoon  to  see  it,  and 
to  talk  with  the  librarian.  The  library  was  in  a 
separate  house,  which  they  told  me  had  been  a 
dye-house  in  the  old  mill,  but  which  had  been 
taken  possession  of  for  this  purpose,  when  the 
new  dye-house  was  built  under  the  direction  of  the 
present  company.  I  found  that  the  pecuniary 
arrangement  of  the  library  was  precisely  the  same 
as  that  made  for  the  church.  This  old  dye-house 
had  been  valued.  The  house  was  worth,  at  the 
time  they  took  possession  of  it,  $475,  and  they  paid 
a  rent  of  four  per  cent  to  the  proprietors  of  the 
mill  for  the  use  of  it.  Indeed,  I  found  on  talking 


376      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

to  one  or  two  of  the  men  and  several  of  the  women, 
that  they  all  understood  that  it  was  better  on  every 
account  that  they  should  maintain  the  library 
themselves,  and  that  it  should  not  be  counted  as 
an  eleemosynary  institution  or  an  institution  which 
other  people  founded  for  them.  I  had  no  doubt, 
from  my  experience  with  some  other  institutions 
elsewhere,  that  it  was  much  more  than  worth  the 
trifle  which  they  paid  for  rent  to  be  able  to  diffuse 
the  feeling  among  all  the  young  people,  and  what 
I  may  call  the  outsiders,  that  they  bought  these 
books  themselves  for  themselves,  and  that  nobody 
was  trying  to  stuff  down  their  throats  a  particular 
literature  selected  by  some  higher  power.  Indeed, 
the  first  step  in  the  institution  of  the  library,  large 
or  small,  is  apt  to  be  a  false  one,  and  its  falseness  is 
in  this  direction,  —  of  condescension.  The  founder 
of  the  library  has  given  ten  thousand  dollars,  and 
he  thinks,  and  probably  thinks  correctly,  that  he 
knows  better  than  the  people  who  are  to  read  it 
what  they  had  better  read.  He  is  right  in  thinking 
that  he  knows  better  than  they  do.  But  he  is 
wrong  in  thinking  that  he  can  make  them  read 
books  which  they  do  not  want  to  read. 

Now,  exactly  as  in  the  co-operative  store  the 
store  began  to  succeed  when  they  gave  the  pur 
chasers  an  equal  share  in  the  profit,  so  in  the 
library,  the  library  begins  to  succeed  when  the 
readers  begin  to  understand  that  it  is,  in  good 
faith,  their  library,  and  not  the  library  that  some 
body  else  has  made  for  them.  You  may  use  any 


The  Public  Library  377 

amount  of  moral  suasion  you  choose  in  persuading 
them  to  read  good  books  instead  of  bad  books. 
In  the  long  run  they  will  find  that  a  good  book  is 
better  than  a  bad  one,  as  indeed  its  name  would 
seem  to  imply.  But  you  are  not  going  to  make 
them  read  books  because  certain  other  people  of 
an  education  different  from  their  own  had  read 
them  and  say  they  ought  to  be  read. 

The  most  striking  instance  I  ever  knew  of  the 
infelicity  of  letting  one  set  of  people  buy  books 
for  another  is  in  the  story  told  of  a  state  govern 
ment,  in  old  times,  which  used  to  send  to  the  same 
publisher  annually,  for  so  many  thousand  dollars' 
worth  of  books  for  the  state  library.  Poor  human 
nature  is  so  weak  that  they  say  he  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  of  clearing  off,  every  year,  so  much 
of  his  stock  which  the  rest  of  the  purchasing  world 
had  not  chosen  to  buy.  Now  those  books  which 
he  sent  were  undoubtedly  good  books,  well  printed 
and  well  bound.  But,  after  all,  the  use  of  a  book 
is  to  be  read.  Indeed,  the  sooner  it  is  read  to 
pieces,  the  better.  For  you  can  certainly  get 
another  copy,  and  you  know  then  that  it  has  ful 
filled  its  mission.  The  danger  and  the  vice  of 
librarians  is,  that  they  are  apt  to  think  that  it  is 
important  that  their  books  should  be  kept  on  the 
shelves.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  they  should  re 
gard  themselves  as  doing  a  duty  exactly  like  that 
of  the  directors  or  cashiers  of  banks,  whose  busi 
ness  it  is  to  keep  the  money  of  the  stockholders  in 
active  circulation,  to  know  where  it  is,  and  to  be 


378     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

able  to  recall  it  at  the  proper  times,  and  by  no 
means  to  lock  up  all  their  capital  stock  in  their 
vaults,  of  no  use  to  any  one. 

The  public  library  at  Hampton  was  not  above 
receiving  gifts,  however,  after  it  was  organized.  In 
point  of  fact,  Mr.  Nourse  made  it  some  very  hand 
some  gifts.  As  Mr.  Spinner  had  told  me,  he  was 
a  great  traveller,  and  he  had  formed  a  habit,  when 
he  was  in  any  distant  city,  of  sending  to  them  such 
books  as  would  illustrate  the  history  or  customs  of 
the  country  in  which  he  was,  if  he  could  find  them 
in  English.  And  he  went  beyond  his  rule  sometimes 
when  he  could  send  good  illustrated  books,  though 
they  were  in  other  languages.  Still,  as  Miss  Jane 
Stevens  had  said  of  her  little  library,  —  the  prin 
cipal  support  of  the  library  was  from  the  people 
themselves.  The  committee  which  directed  it  was 
a  sub-committee  of  the  government  of  the  store, 
and  with  every  return  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
stockholders,  and  other  persons  interested  in  the 
stock,  they  voted  a  larger  and  larger  sum  towards 
library  expenses.  They  engaged  a  young  woman 
to  keep  the  library  open  every  evening  at  first,  and 
eventually  it  was  kept  open  all  the  time  in  winter 
when  the  mills  were  not  running.  This  made  a 
very  long  evening. 

I  have  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  such  things  in 
different  places,  and  I  looked  with  a  good  deal  of 
interest  through  the  shelves,  and  afterwards  over 
the  printed  catalogue,  to  see  what  class  of  books 
they  had  chosen  to  buy.  I  was  not  surprised  to 


The  Public  Library  379 

find  a  very  large  proportion  of  children's  books. 
Then  there  was  a  quite  considerable  branch  of 
books  of  natural  history,  and  I  found,  on  inquir 
ing,  that  the  interest  in  these  studies  was  due  to 
Miss  Jane  Stevens  herself.  She  had  a  boy  come 
in  one  night  to  her  schoolroom  who  wanted  a 
book,  and  she  had  the  good  sense  to  show  one 
of  Mr.  Nourse's  elegant  books  of  illustration,  which 
was,  as  it  happened,  a  series  of  butterflies  and  other 
insects  which  had  been  collected  in  South  Amer 
ica.  She  told  the  boy  that  he  and  his  companion 
might  look  at  the  book  there  if  they  would  be  care 
ful.  But  then  she  asked  if  they  would  not  like  to 
know  something  about  butterflies,  and  perhaps  to 
collect  butterflies,  and  put  into  their  hands  a  little 
English  book  not  above  them,  which  had  some 
curious  studies  on  the  habits  of  caterpillars,  moths, 
and  butterflies.  The  next  Saturday  afternoon  they 
started  out,  four  or  five  of  them,  with  a  butterfly 
net,  and  the  result  was  quite  a  little  collection. 
She  taught  some  of  the  girls  how  to  make  cages 
in  which  caterpillars  could  spin  their  cocoons. 
She  taught  some  of  them  how  to  make  for  them 
selves  little  books  in  which,  as  well  as  they  could, 
they  drew  pictures  of  the  growth  of  the  grub  from 
the  egg,  representing  him  every  three  days,  in  fact, 
till  he  advanced  to  his  full  size.  Boys  and  girls 
took  up  the  new  study  with  a  great  deal  of  enthu 
siasm,  and  the  result  was  that  there  was  a  great  de 
mand  for  all  the  "  butterfly  books,"  as  they  called 
them,  which  Miss  Stevens  had  in  store ;  and  the 


380     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

committee,  of  course,  were  glad,  as  far  as  their 
means  went,  to  let  her  buy  more.  As  soon  as  Mr. 
Nourse  heard  this,  he  was  well  pleased.  One  of 
the  girls  had  made  a  particularly  pretty  book  of 
studies,  and  had  gone  so  far  as  to  color  her  cater 
pillars  neatly.  This  was  sent  to  Mr.  Nourse  as  a 
Christmas  present.  He  was  very  much  pleased, 
and,  from  that  time,  kept  his  eye  on  the  catalogues 
and  advertisements,  and  supplied  the  little  collec 
tion  with  popular  books ;  and,  indeed,  with  some 
books  of  a  scientific  value  which  would  help  the 
children  in  these  lines. 

Miss  Stevens  told  me  of  this  story  with  a  good 
deal  of  interest,  as,  indeed,  she  might;  and  from 
his  own  point  of  view,  Spinner  afterwards  told  me 
the  same  story,  to  show  that  a  study  which  could 
never  have  been  forced  upon  such  a  community  as 
this,  introduced  itself,  as  he  said,  if  you  were  only 
willing  to  begin  at  the  right  end. 

I  found  that  she  was  in  correspondence  with  the 
Hartford  people,  the  Providence  people,  with  Mr. 
Bowker  in  New  York,  and  that  she  kept  the  run  of 
what  she  wanted,  in  the  way  of  publication  and 
library  work,  as  well  as  the  grandest  of  them  do. 
In  short,  she  assured  me,  and  so  did  Mr.  Spinner, 
that  the  library  was  now  a  very  popular  institution 
in  the  place,  and  that  there  was  no  danger  what 
ever  that  the  interest  in  it  would  fall  away.  They 
lent  very  freely,  but  they  enforced  their  rules  reg 
ularly  ;  and  they  were  glad  to  extend  their  accom 
modations  for  reading  in  the  building  itself,  so  as 


The  Public  Library  381 

to  encourage  all  the  young  people  to  form  habits 
of  reading  where,  of  course,  they  could  readily 
consult  books  of  reference. 

Mr.  Raikes,  superintendent  of  the  Sunday-school, 
told  me  that  the  Sunday-school  was  a  different 
place  and  a  different  thing,  now  that  he  and  the 
other  teachers  could  refer  the  older  scholars  to 
such  books  as  they  ought  to  consult,  and  that  he 
was  quite  sure  that  when  an  intelligent  teacher 
made  such  a  suggestion,  the  suggestion  would  be 
followed  up  by  application  to  Miss  Stevens,  or  the 
librarian,  for  the  books  referred  to.  She  told  me 
that  she  made  it  a  matter  of  course  to  have  on 
hand  all  the  books  required  for  reference  by  the 
Chautauquan  Reading  Circle,  and  that  they  had, 
every  year,  a  large  "  home  circle  "  of  those  readers, 
who  would  have  given  her  no  peace  if  she  had 
not  kept  the  library  up  to  the  intelligent  requi 
sitions  which  the  Chautauquan  system  of  reading 
demands. 

All  this,  however,  it  must  be  observed,  was 
absolutely  democratic.  The  readers  themselves 
made  the  selection  of  books.  They  thought  they 
knew  what  they  wanted,  and  if  they  made  a  mis 
take  the  fault  was  their  own. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ENTERTAINMENT 

HAMPTON  made  up  the  whole,  or  nearly  the 
whole,  as  has  been  said,  of  District  No.  13, 
in  the  township  in  which  it  belonged,  so  that  the 
management  of  its  school  fell  almost  entirely  under 
the  oversight  of  a  district  committee,  chosen  by 
the  people  themselves  in  their  annual  town-meet 
ing.  Such  is  the  law  of  that  State.  A  year  or  two 
before  I  was  there,  some  showman  had  come  up 
the  valley  with  an  exhibition,  which  had  called 
together,  as  most  shows  or  concerts  did,  a  consid 
erable  audience,  and  which  had  displeased  the 
leaders  of  the  community.  I  should  not  think 
they  had  been  prudish  or  over-sensitive  about  it, 
from  what  I  heard.  But  Holmes,  for  instance, 
said  to  me,  very  quietly,  "  It  was  not  such  a  per 
formance  as  I  chose  to  take  my  wife  and  children 
to  see." 

Now  a  good  deal  of  money  goes  into  the  pockets 
of  the  itinerant  showmen,  of  various  departments, 
in  a  village  as  prosperous  as  this.  And  if  I  class 
the  purveyors  of  concerts,  and  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies  who  deliver  lectures  among  the  showmen, 


Entertainment  383 

they  must  not  be  surprised.  For  certainly  the 
announcements,  or  the  advertisements,  sometimes 
make  it  hard  to  distinguish  between  the  entertain 
ments  proposed. 

When  there  was  any  talk,  serious  or  light,  as  to 
the  advantages  or  disadvantages  of  Hampton  as  a 
place  to  live  in,  it  was  very  apt  to  come  round  to 
the  discussion  of  the  amusements  which  came 
there,  or  which  stayed  away.  Indeed,  the  great 
problem  of  this  day,  and  of  the  next  generation,  is 
how  the  congestion  of  the  large  cities  is  to  be 
checked,  and  how  the  population  of  the  country 
can  be  increased.  Whoever  is  interested  in  this 
question,  and  means  to  do  anything  for  its  solu 
tion,  had  best  consider,  first  of  all,  the  questions  of 
public  amusement  or  entertainment.  For  there  is 
no  use  in  proving  to  young  people  that  they  can 
earn  more  wages  in  a  healthy  country  village  than 
in  a  crowded  unhealthy  city,  if  they  think  the  city 
cheerful  and  gay  or  the  country  dull  and  stupid. 
They  do  not  crowd  the  cities  because  they  think 
they  shall  grow  rich  there,  but  because  they  want 
an  animated  and  crowded  life.  Wisely  or  un 
wisely,  they  are  tempted  by  the  excitement  of 
crowds,  of  concerts,  of  bands,  of  theatres,  of  public 
meetings,  of  processions,  of  exhibitions,  of  parties, 
of  clubs,  or,  in  general,  of  society.  Whoever  will 
take  the  trouble  to  listen  to  the  conversation  of 
such  young  people,  will  see,  in  five  minutes,  that 
the  recollection  of  such  excitements,  or  the  hope  of 
partaking  of  them,  is  the  inducement  which  leads 


384     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

them  to  seek  city  life,  or  which,  after  they  have 
sought  it,  leads  them  to  remain  in  it,  in  spite  of  its 
manifold  hardships.  Mrs.  Helen  Campbell  has 
painted  a  terrible  picture,  not  exaggerated,  not 
overcolored  in  a  single  stroke,  which  portrays  the 
horrible  sufferings  of  the  handiworkers  of  her  own 
sex  in  the  city  of  New  York.  But  whoever  asks 
why  those  poor  women  remain  there,  in  their  ill- 
requited  toil,  and  why  they  do  not  go  to  live  in 
that  country  which  God  made,  with  its  better 
wages  and  its  lighter  work,  learns  at  once  that  the 
sufficient  reason  is  that  they  want  to  stay,  and  do  not 
want  to  go.  More  than  this,  if  any  Aladdin  should 
lift  fifty  thousand  of  the  poorest  of  them  from  their 
wretched  tenements  to-night,  and  make  of  them 
princesses  and  duchesses,  their  hard  places  in  their 
workshops  would  be  filled  before  the  week  was 
over  by  fifty  thousand  other  girls  who  would  gladly 
come  from  the  hillsides  and  valleys,  which  we 
rightly  say  are  better  homes  for  them. 

Whoever  considers  the  problem  thus  presented, 
and  wants  to  relieve  what  we  have  called  the  con 
gestion  of  life  in  the  large  cities,  must  do  what  he 
can  to  increase  the  opportunities  for  entertain 
ment,  for  amusement,  yes,  for  excitement,  so  far 
as  it  can  reasonably  be  done,  for  those  who  live  in 
the  country.  It  is  a  misfortune  indeed  that,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  literature  is  misleading. 
Books  are  generally  printed  in  cities,  and  naturally 
authors  gather  there.  The  leading  newspapers 
and  magazines  are,  almost  of  necessity,  published 


Entertainment  385 

in  such  cities.  So  far  as  they  direct  the  opinion  of 
the  young,  there  is  an  undercurrent  or  ground-note, 
which  suggests  to  the  young  reader  that  in  cities 
is  to  be  found  the  governing  influence  of  the  world. 
The  suggestion  is  probably  false,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  seductive  to  inexperienced  readers.  Thus 
Mr.  Horace  Greeley  may  say,  "  Go  West,  young 
man,"  but  the  young  man  observes  that  Mr.  Greeley 
himself  remains  in  New  York,  and  naturally  enough, 
if  he  respects  him,  follows  his  example  rather  than 
his  instructions. 

The  leading  people  in  the  village  of  Hampton 
knew  perfectly  well  how  strong  was  the  undertow 
of  the  tide  which  would  carry  away  their  young 
people  to  larger  manufacturing  towns,  or  to  great 
commercial  cities,  if  its  constant  sweep  was  not 
steadily  counteracted.  It  was  after  the  almost 
disgraceful  public  entertainment  which  has  been 
alluded  to,  that  they  took  distinct  measures,  quite 
systematically,  to  superintend  the  public  entertain 
ment  by  system ;  and  the  people  most  interested  in 
this  meant  positive  work,  and  not  negative.  "  We 
want  to  overcome  evil  with  good,"  said  Dick 
Sheridan,  a  queer  Irishman  they  had  among  them, 
who,  as  it  happened,  took  the  oversight  of  this 
business.  A  district  school  meeting  in  No.  9  was 
not  generally  an  affair  which  greatly  interested  the 
younger  voters,  or  the  people  generally.  But  on 
the  occasion  alluded  to,  it  had  been  generally  re 
ported  in  the  shops  and  the  different  rooms  that 
Uncle  Dick,  as  Sheridan  was  called,  meant  to  make 

25 


386     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

a  speech.  Such  a  thing  was  quite  unheard  of, 
and  the  meeting  was  crowded  with  voters  and 
with  spectators  also,  who  had  come  to  hear  the 
man  who,  though  he  was  the  wit  or  wag  of  the 
village,  was  not  generally  interested  in  public 
affairs. 

When  the  meeting  was  well  under  way,  Sheridan 
rose,  perfectly  serious ;  and  an  excellent  speech  he 
made.  He  knew  that  the  boys  had  come  with  the 
idea  that  he  would  make  fun  for  them,  and  he  took 
care  that  the  boys  should  be  disappointed.  He 
spoke  with  a  good  deal  of  feeling  of  the  im 
pression  which  the  coarse  and  vulgar  entertain 
ment  had  made  in  the  village.  He  said  he  did 
not  think  any  one  in  the  village  was  to  blame  for 
it,  but,  for  one,  he  did  not  mean  to  have  the  young 
people  so  insulted  again  if  he  could  help  it.  He 
said  also  that  any  one  who  knew  him  knew  that  he 
had  no  wish  to  check  legitimate  fun  or  sport  of  any 
kind.  He  had  not  come  to  this  meeting  with  any 
such  idea.  It  was  here  that  he  used  the  quotation 
from  Saint  Paul  that  has  been  cited,  and  said  that 
if  they  meant  to  abate  such  nuisances  they  must 
overcome  evil  with  good. 

"  That  we  may  have,"  said  he,  "  such  advantage 
as  legal  authority  may  give  us  in  this  matter,  I 
propose  that  the  district  committee,  now  to  be 
elected,  be  requested  to  take  the  supervision  of 
the  public  entertainments  of  this  place  as  a  part 
of  the  public  education.  I  know  very  well  how 
much  and  how  little  this  vote  may  mean  under  the 


Entertainment  387 

law  of  this  State.  But  I  know,  also,  that  it  will 
mean  a  great  deal  in  this  community  if  it  is  passed, 
as  I  believe  it  will  be,  unanimously. 

"  My  idea  is,  that  instead  of  a  district  school 
committee  of  three,  such  as  we  usually  choose, 
we  shall  this  year  make  a  committee  of  ten.  I 
propose  that  we  re-elect  the  last  year's  committee 
of  three,  and  add  to  it  three  gentlemen  and  four 
ladies.  I  propose  that,  besides  the  supervision  of 
our  school,  they  communicate  with  the  selectmen 
of  this  town  as  to  the  persons  who  receive  licenses 
for  public  entertainment.  If  they  approve,  on  the 
whole,  of  such  persons,  all  right.  If  they  find  an 
other  such  case  as  that  of  these  minstrels  we  had 
here  last  month,  why,  they  will  say  so  to  the 
people  who  have  halls  to  let  here,  and  I  do  not 
think  that,  when  they  have  said  so,  anybody  in  this 
town  will  let  such  a  man  a  hall."  Here  there  was 
some  applause.  But  Dick  Sheridan  went  steadily 
on.  "  But  I  do  not  mean  to  stop  here."  He 
meant  that  this  committee  —  and  when  he  said 
committee  he  really  meant  himself —  should  take 
boldly  and  bodily  the  positive  direction  and  provi 
sion  for  the  amusements  of  the  place.  He  had 
thought  of  this  before  a  good  deal,  and  was  not 
sorry  to  undertake  to  carry  out  some  of  his  own 
plans.  He  was  quite  clear  that,  with  a  little  money 
in  hand,  so  that  fit  contracts  could  be  made  with 
the  right  persons,  he  could  induce  performers  or 
artists  of  high  character  to  come  to  Hampton  for 
the  entertainment  of  the  people.  He  did  not  even 


388     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

dare  to  show  his  own  committee  at  first  his  plans 
in  detail,  so  bold  were  they.  But  he  was  one  of 
those  men  who  has  his  eyes  open  to  such  things ; 
he  was  constitutionally  fond  of  public  entertain 
ment  himself,  and  had  never  succeeded  very  well 
in  enjoying  himself  when  he  was  all  alone  for  four 
or  five  hours  in  an  evening,  even  if  you  gave  him 
the  most  entertaining  books  for  company.  He  was 
a  social  fellow,  who  liked  to  be  in  a  crowd,  and  he 
knew,  almost  by  instinct,  those  people  who,  by 
genius  or  education,  were  able  to  call  such  per 
sons  together.  He  said  that  there  were  good  actors 
who  would  give  recitals  and  presentations,  that 
there  were  good  artists  who  would  draw  amusing 
or  instructive  pictures  at  sight  for  audiences,  that 
there  were  musicians,  vocal  or  instrumental,  who 
were  only  waiting  to  be  employed,  and  that  the  per 
son  who  could  control  these  people  was  a  permanent 
and  official  manager  with  a  little  money  in  his  hand. 
He  said  that  this  class  of  people  were,  of  their  very 
nature,  singularly  poor  business  men ;  he  said  that 
if  a  business  man  met  with  them,  he  had  them,  so 
to  speak,  at  an  advantage.  Now  Sheridan  did  not 
want  to  cheat  them ;  he  did  want  to  pay  them  fair 
wages  for  fair  work ;  and  he  wanted  to  entertain  the 
people  of  Hampton  at  the  same  time.  All  this  he 
had  thought  out  himself.  All  this  he  knew  he  could 
persuade  his  committee  to  try,  or  he  thought  he  knew 
it.  And  he  made  this  speech  with  a  view  to  having 
that  sort  of  authority  given  to  him  that  he  could 
go  forward  with  courage,  and  that  nobody  could 


Entertainment  389 

say  that  Dick  Sheridan  was  putting  himself  into  an 
affair  with  which  he  had  nothing  to  do. 

So  soon  as  Sheridan  had  spoken,  my  friend 
Holmes,  he  of  the  cabbage  and  strawberries,  spoke, 
and  to  the  same  purpose,  though  in  quite  a  different 
way.  I  fancy  that  they  had  not  had  much  to  do  with 
each  other  before,  and  that  it  was  rather  a  surprise, 
perhaps  an  amusement  to  the  youngsters  present, 
to  see  them  advocating  the  same  cause  at  the  same 
meeting.  Holmes  was  recognized  as  a  religious 
man.  He  had  a  Bible-class  on  Sunday,  and  was, 
I  believe,  thought  strict  in  the  charge  of  his  chil 
dren.  Nobody  ever  called  Dick  Sheridan  strict, 
and,  though  he  was  a  very  decent  member  of  the 
community,  as  far  as  his  daily  manners  and  cus 
toms  went,  nobody  would  have  classed  him  among 
distinctly  religious  men.  If  he  was  distinguished 
for  anything,  it  was  for  a  tradition  that  he  had 
once  been  a  pitcher  in  a  celebrated  ball  club,  and 
that  he  always  interested  himself  in  the  sports  of 
such  clubs  in  Hampton  and  in  Wentworth. 

The  motion,  however,  was  no  surprise  to  the 
leader  of  the  meeting,  or  to  the  fathers  of  families 
who  were  interested  in  the  schools.  It  had  been 
carefully  arranged  beforehand,  in  the  home  talk 
which  makes  the  genuine  "  preliminary  meeting  "  in 
New  England  politics,  and,  with  little  other  discus 
sion  than  has  been  described,  it  was  passed  unani 
mously.  The  three  district  committeemen  of  the 
last  year  were  chosen  again.  To  them  were  added 
three  men  and  four  women,  as  Sheridan  had  pro- 


39°     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

posed.  He  was  one  of  the  men,  Holmes  was  an 
other,  and  young  Brahm,  who  was  the  first  bass  on 
the  glee  club  and  president  of  the  ball  club,  was 
the  third ;  Miss  Jane  Stevens,  who  has  been  already 
spoken  of,  was  one  of  the  women. 

So  soon  as  the  committee  was  organized,  it  was 
clear  that  Dick  Sheridan  "  meant  work."  He  was 
in  correspondence  with  this  band  and  that  quar 
tette.  He  was  away  in  New  York  for  two  or  three 
days,  and  there  were  even  rumors  that  he  had  a 
personal  interview  with  Mr.  Beecher,  to  persuade 
him  to  come  to  Hampton  to  lecture.  What  he  did, 
and  what  he  was  said  to  do,  kept  the  talkers  of 
Hampton  busy  for  the  next  six  weeks,  and  the 
newspapers  in  Wentworth  and  Alton  even  took  up 
the  story  of  the  achievements  of  this  committee. 
What  followed  was,  as  he  himself  explained  to  me, 
that  never  was  there  a  course  of  entertainments  so 
well  advertised  as  this  first  course  of  concerts, 
lectures,  and  readings.  "  From  that  time,  Mr. 
Freeman,"  he  said  to  me,  "we  were  made.  We 
made  on  that  one  course,  —  oh,  more  than  two  hun 
dred  dollars  clear  profit,  —  just  because  it  was  a 
new  thing,  and  everybody  was  talking  about  us. 
There  is  plenty  of  money  spent  on  these  things 
always.  The  trouble  is,  that  very  little  of  it,  in 
comparison,  goes  to  modest  people,  who  will  not 
blow,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  goes  to  liars  and 
tramps,  who  skin  the  business,  and  never  mean 
to  come  again. 

"We   had   over   two   hundred  dollars  in  hand. 


Entertainment  3  9 1 

We  appointed  a  permanent  trustee  and  treasurer 
to  keep  it  for  us  and  to  keep  the  accounts.  Then, 
you  see,  when  I  went  to  engage  an  orchestra,  or  a 
quartette,  or  anybody,  I  could  talk  business.  I 
did  not  have  to  say  that  if  the  night  were  good 
they  would  have  so  much,  and  if  it  were  bad  we 
could  only  pay  the  expenses.  I  said  '  twenty  dol 
lars,'  or  '  thirty  dollars,'  or  '  fifty  dollars,'  or  what 
ever,  and  they  knew  I  meant  it.  We  controlled 
the  hall.  All  we  had  to  pay  for  that  —  well,  you 
know  about  that  —  was  light  and  heat,  and  our 
per  cent  to  Mr.  Nourse  on  his  plant.  And  then, 
—  well,  these  people  are  not  fools ;  they  know  a 
good  thing  from  a  bad  one;  and  all  that  was 
needed  was,  that  we  should  be  able  to  make  to 
them  fair  proposals,  to  pay  them  money  in  advance, 
if  the  poor  fellows  needed  it,  but,  above  all  things, 
to  pay  them  on  the  nail,  as  soon  as  they  had  given 
their  entertainment." 

Sheridan  added,  modestly  enough,  that  there  was 
a  good  deal  in  approaching  these  people  in  the 
right  way.  He  said :  "  I  might  have  stroked  all 
the  fur  back,  and  had  them  all  dislike  me.  As  it 
stands,  do  you  know,  I  think  they  like  me  better 
than  almost  any  person  they  have  to  deal  with.  I 
have  never  cheated  them,  as  some  '  impresarios ' 
would  have  done,  by  making  very  large  promises, 
which  they  could  never  fulfil.  I  have  never  de 
graded  them  by  speaking  as  if  I  were  hiring  them 
for  some  menial  service.  I  have  always  seen  that, 
when  they  came  here,  they  should  be  treated  as 


392     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

well  as  a  clergyman  would  be  if  he  came  here.  I 
have  always  made  them  understand  that  I  consid 
ered  them  as  co-operating  with  the  best  people  of 
this  place,  for  the  highest  interests  of  this  place. 
I  have  made  it  my  business  to  see  that  they  were 
courteously  and  cordially  treated  by  our  best  citi 
zens  when  they  were  here,  and  I  tried  to  make 
Hampton  so  agreeable  to  them  that  they  would 
want  to  come  again.  The  consequence  is  that  they 
like  to  come ;  they  will  put  themselves  out  of  the 
way  to  come  here  for  me,  even  though  I  pay  them 
much  less  than  they  are  paid  in  some  other  places. 
You  cannot,  Mr.  Freeman,"  he  said,  in  conclusion, 
"  overestimate  the  advantage  of  dealing  with  au 
thority  in  a  permanent  position,  so  that  you  can 
look  forward  and  remember  the  past  as  well,  and, 
above  all  things,  the  advantage  of  having  some 
money  in  the  pocket." 

I  said,  with  some  admiration  of  the  man,  that 
they  also  had  the  great  advantage  of  a  stage 
manager  who  did  not  want  to  be  paid.  Sheridan 
laughed,  and  took  the  compliment  good-naturedly. 

"  I  like  to  see  the  thing  well  done.  I  had  talked 
about  such  a  thing  for  years,  and  I  meant  to  make 
it  succeed,  now  I  had  a  chance.  But  the  others 
backed  me  up  well.  That  little  Miss  Stevens,  now, 
—  there 's  a  great  deal  more  of  her  than  you  think 
for.  And  then,  the  people  themselves,  they  meant 
to  have  it  succeed.  I  tell  you,  it  was  Democracy 
applied  to  Entertainment,  just  as  the  whole  busi 
ness  here  is  Democracy  applied  to  spinning  and 


Entertainment  393 

weaving.  The  secret  of  Democracy  in  anything, 
Mr.  Freeman,  is  not  any  magic  written  down  on  a 
sheet  of  paper,  and  called  a  constitution;  it  is 
that  everybody  wants  the  machine  to  move,  and  so 
makes  it  move,  and  does  his  share.  That  is  just 
what  those  people  saw.  They  paid  their  money 
freely,  because  they  knew  it  was  their  concern. 
They  did  not  care  for  profit  so  much  as  they 
cared  for  success. 

"Well!  I  started  from  the  first  for  variety. 
And  I  never  pretended  to  be  instructive.  I  told 
Miss  Jane  Stevens  to  keep  her  instruction  at 
school,  — that  she  was  to  be  made  to  laugh  herself, 
—  that  we  were  to  entertain  them.  She  's  no  fool, 
and  she  laughed  and  said  that  was  all  right,  —  and 
she  has  been  a  real  help,  as  I  tell  you.  Variety,  I 
said,  and  all  entertainment,  and  do  not  be  too 
grand.  For  the  autumn  and  winter,  we  tried  first 
for  two  entertainments  a  week,  and  afterwards 
for  three.  But  we  also  tried  not  to  interfere. 
If  they  wanted,  at  the  church,  to  have  a  lecture 
or  meeting  or  anything,  they  let  us  know  in  ad 
vance,  and  we  kept  out  of  their  way.  '  Courses  ?  ' 
Oh,  yes,  —  we  have  some  courses.  A  good  course 
is  a  good  thing.  It  is  a  mutual  insurance,  —  a 
good  night  takes  care  of  a  bad  one,  and  a  bright 
speaker  draws,  if  you  have  made  a  mistake  and 
engaged  a  dull  one  for  another  evening.  But  we 
were  not  limited  to  courses.  We  kept  our  eyes 
open,  and  our  ears.  If  a  man,  or  a  troupe,  or  a 
band,  were  coming  to  Wentworth  or  to  Norwich, 


394     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

we  let  them  understand  that  there  was  sure  pay,  if 
not  quite  so  much,  if  they  would  come  round  to  us. 
We  would  have  them  Monday,  —  that  was  all  the 
same  to  us.  But  perhaps  you  do  not  know  that 
Monday  is  a  bad  day  for  showmen  generally." 

In  this  way,  partly  because  Mr.  Sheridan  and  his 
committee  had  the  tclat  of  a  new  beginning,  the 
first  season  was  very  profitable,  and  the  trustee- 
treasurer  had  quite  a  sum  in  hand  at  the  end  of 
the  first  winter.  Then  it  was  that,  to  the  surprise 
of  every  one,  he  announced  a  change  of  base,  and 
carried  it  in  his  committee.  He  proposed  that 
three  fourths  of  this  money  should  be  spent  for 
the  open-air  entertainments  of  the  summer.  So 
much  help  was  to  be  given  to  the  ball  club  and  the 
tennis  club ;  so  much  was  to  be  spent  for  evening 
concerts  in  the  square.  And,  as  the  money  was 
everybody's  money,  it  was  agreed  that  a  part  of  it 
should  be  used  to  negotiate  with  the  railroad  com 
panies,  to  provide  for  two  all-day  excursions,  by 
which  those  who  started  early  and  returned  late 
might  have  a  long  day  at  Sachem's  Head,  on  the 
Sound. 

"  In  the  end,"  Sheridan  said,  "  the  excursions 
have  not  cost  us  one  cent.  I  mean  the  people 
have  bought  tickets  enough  to  pay  for  the  whole 
thing.  But  it  is  with  the  railroad  as  it  is  with  the 
orchestras.  They  want  a  sure  thing.  They  are 
glad  enough  to  sell  me  a  train,  and  to  sell  it  to  me 
low,  if  I  have  the  money.  But  if  it  comes  to  '  if ' 
and  '  perhaps,'  —  if  they  are  to  take  the  risk,  — 


Entertainment  395 

why,  they  want  the  possible  profit,  as  well  as  the 
possible  loss.  So  I  never  have  offered  them  any 
doubtful  enterprise.  I  have  said,  '  I  will  take  four 
cars,  or  six,'  as  the  case  may  be.  And  you  can  see 
that,  after  one  success,  we  are  wellnigh  sure.  If 
we  were  not  sure,  why,  we  have  something  in  the 
bank  to  fall  back  upon. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  I  am  really  well  known  among 
the  large  fraternity  of  people  who  amuse  and 
entertain  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  right  sort 
know  me.  They  address  me;  I  do  not  have  to 
hunt  them  up.  They  know  the  terms  are  cash 
down,  but  they  also  know  that  we  shall  stand  no 
nonsense.  In  these  last  years  we  have  had  the 
hall  open  nearly  sixty  times  in  three  months,  from 
November  first  to  February,  and  in  the  other 
months  almost  as  often.  And  we  have  had  some 
of  the  best  talent  in  the  country  here.  Two 
secrets,  Mr.  Freeman, —  cash  on  the  nail  and 
constant  variety.  But  we  could  never  have  had 
the  cash  had  it  not  been  Democracy  applied  to 
Entertainment." 

This  matter  of  public  amusement  or  entertain 
ment  played  so  important  a  part  in  the  social  life 
of  this  little  community  that  we  frequently  came 
round  to  it  in  conversation.  From  all  my  nearest 
friends  there  I  heard  a  good  deal  about  the  practical 
working  of  their  plans,  and  I  satisfied  myself  that 
Sheridan  had  not  over-stated  either  their  success 
or  their  importance. 


396     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

In  any  such  enterprise  as  this,  the  permanency 
of  the  population  is  a  matter  to  be  very  carefully 
provided  for.  It  is,  indeed,  quite  essential  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  community  shall  remain 
where  they  are,  shall  maintain  the  local  pride  or 
esprit  de  corps  of  the  place,  and  that  thus  the  works 
shall  train  their  own  workmen,  as  Spinner  once  and 
again  said  to  me.  In  all  that  I  had  learned  about 
the  store,  I  had  seen  that  its  success  absolutely 
depended  on  its  freedom  from  any  vagary  of  public 
opinion,  which  should  set  any  considerable  number 
of  those  who  shared  in  it  upon  some  emigration 
project,  for  which  they  would  want  to  withdraw,  of 
a  sudden,  their  capital.  The  danger  of  removal 
was  distinctly  visible  here,  but,  as  Holmes  said 
again  and  again,  it  was  just  as  great  in  every  other 
relation  of  their  life,  and  their  success  was  always 
just  as  much  impaired  by  the  "  flitting  "  of  good 
hands,  though  the  danger  might  not  be  so  ap 
parent  upon  the  surface.  "  New  men  do  not 
care  anything  about  you."  "  New  hands  take  on 
airs."  "  New  hands  spoil  the  machinery."  "  New 
hands,  —  new  ways."  Such  saws  were  repeated  to 
me  again  and  again. 

"  I  do  not  say,"  said  Spinner,  "  that  I  want  to 
build  up  a  community  of  my  namesakes  here, 
or  of  weavers.  I  don't  take  much  stock  in  Mr. 
Atkinson's  theory  of  the  heredity  of  good  weav 
ing.  However  that  may  be,  I  want  the  boys  and 
girls  to  choose  the  calling  that  God  made  them 
for,  whatever  that  may  be.  But  among  those 


Entertainment  397 

callings  open  to  them,  is  this  of  weaving  good 
woollen  cloth.  It  is  an  honorable  and  profitable 
way  of  serving  the  world,  as  honorable  and 
profitable  as  any.  I  do  mean  that  my  boys 
and  girls  shall  not  be  ashamed  of  their  father's 
business,  and  that  if  they  use  it,  they  shall  carry 
it  on  to  advantage.  They  may  go  on  a  wander- 
tour  if  they  want  to,  as  lads  like  to  do,  when  their 
time  comes.  But  I  want  to  have  them  come  back 
here,  and  I  want  to  have  this  place  as  attractive  as 
any  place  they  will  find." 

Substantially  the  same  thing  was  said  by  the 
other  leaders  of  the  little  community.  And  they 
were  young  enough  themselves,  and  remembered 
enough  of  their  own  youth,  to  know  what  would 
make  a  town  attractive  to  young  people,  and  what 
were  the  features  of  its  life  to  which  the  memory 
of  a  wanderer  would  return.  They  knew  that  its 
social  attractions  would  count  for  more  than  money 
wages,  and  for  more  than  any  prospect,  even,  of 
rapid  promotion.  To  have  "  had  a  good  time,"  as 
the  happy  old  English  of  Dryden's  time  put  it, — 
this  is  a  thing  which  young  people  remember,  and 
to  the  renewal  of  it  they  look  forward. 

And  I  was  well  pleased  one  day  to  find  that 
Mr.  Sherlock  took  the  same  view.  He  picked 
me  up,  with  my  basket  of  fish,  one  day  when  he 
was  driving,  and  he  talked  to  me  very  seriously 
of  all  this.  He  told  me  that  he  had  an  excellent 
set  of  young  people  in  Hampton,  and  that  he 
ascribed  that  very  much  to  the  watchful  care 


398      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

which  had  been  kept,  from  the  beginning  almost, 
over  the  public  entertainments  of  the  young. 
"Lead  us  not  into  temptation"  means  a  great 
deal.  And  he  declared  that  the  temptations 
opened  to  young  life,  in  the  carelessness  which 
too  often  neglects  this  matter  in  the  cities  and 
towns  of  the  country,  seemed  to  him  to  be  the 
enemies  of  Christian  life  most  frequent,  most 
subtle,  and  most  to  be  dreaded.  If  he  probed 
to  the  bottom  the  history  of  the  moral  decline 
and  ruin  of  any  young  man  or  young  woman,  he 
was  most  apt  to  find  that  in  the  good-natured 
negligence  in  which  parents  had  left  boy  or  girl 
to  hear  or  to  see  this  or  that,  which  broke  up 
all  early  principles  of  purity,  was  to  be  found 
the  beginning  of  the  difficulty.  Sheridan  was 
right  when  he  told  the  people  to  overcome  evil 
with  good.  There  was  nothing  else  to  overcome 
it  with,  and  the  field  in  which  he  was  at  work  was 
by  no  means  insignificant. 


CHAPTER  XII 

TEMPERANCE 

WE  were  sitting  in  the  counting-room  one  day, 
when  both  Mr.  Spinner  and  Mr.  Workman 
seemed  to  have  finished  their  afternoon  work,  and 
I  asked  them  how  they  coped  with  the  great  devil 
of  all. 

"You  mean  liquor."  It  was  Workman  who 
replied.  "Well,  we  try  to  overcome  evil  with 
good.  All  the  conditions  are  in  our  favor,  and 
we  have  had  more  success  than  I  would  have 
dared  to  hope. 

"  In  the  first  place,  —  well,  I  do  not  know  as 
you  know  I  have  the  whole  responsibility  of  the 
help ;  our  friend  Spinner  does  not  interfere  with 
me  there,  —  I  will  not  have  a  drinking  man  or 
woman  on  the  premises." 

"  Plenty  of  them  apply,"  said  Spinner,  groaning. 
"  Show  Mr.  Freeman  that  letter  which  you  had 
from  Dr.  Good  —  " 

"No,  I  will  not  stop  to  show  it  to  him.  But 
I  will  tell  him.  It  was  a  letter  begging  me  to 
take  a  family  here  which  was  broken  down  because 
the  man  could  not  keep  from  whiskey.  Dr.  Good 


400     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

had  lectured  here,  he  knew  his  friend  could  have 
no  whiskey  here,  and  he  wanted  to  send  him  to  us 
as  to  a  hospital. 

"  I  do  not  know  what  you  will  think,  but  I  would 
not  take  him,  though  I  believe  he  understood  his 
business.  I  am  not  sure  if  I  was  right.  I  wrote 
Dr.  Good  the  best  letter  I  could,  but  I  did  not 
quite  satisfy  myself. 

"  But  the  ground  I  take  is,  that  I  must  care  first 
for  these  children  and  young  people  on  the 
spot.  I  will  not  lead  them  into  temptation,  and 
the  difficulty  is  so  tremendous  that  I  will  be  on  the 
guard  everywhere." 

Workman  spoke  with  so  much  feeling  that  I 
have  no  doubt  there  was  a  skeleton  somewhere  in 
his  own  house,  reminding  him  of  his  duty  in  this 
matter,  as  there  is,  indeed,  in  most  houses. 

"  Literature  is  bad  enough,"  he  went  on  to  say. 
"  The  descriptions  of  drinking,  as  if  it  were  the 
crowning  height  of  a  man's  life,  the  talk  of  wine,  as 
if  it  were  the  highest  article  of  manufacture,  — 
and  this  in  good  books,  which  the  young  people 
ought  to  read,  —  this  makes  a  sort  of  mysterious 
joy  hang  over  the  thing,  which  the  devil  must 
delight  in.  The  newspapers,  as  you  know,  are 
quite  unreliable  about  it.  Read  between  the  KneSj 
and  see  if  the  man  who  reported  Neal  Dow  did 
not  write  out  his  notes  in  a  bar-room.  My  boys 
and  girls  have  to  meet  all  that,  at  the  best.  And 
I  did  not  want  to  have  a  man  here  who  might 
be  devising  plans  to  bring  liquor  in,  or  even  going 


Temperance  401 

down  to  Wentworth  with  one  of  the  young  men 
to  see  what  they  could  find  there. 

"  I  run  this  mill  as  a  place  for  the  workingmen 
and  women  first.  After  we  have  done  this,"  he 
said,  laughing,  "  if  we  can  turn  out  a  few  yards  of 
Hampton  A  No.  i,  why,  I  do  so,  because  Spinner 
there  is  so  eager  about  it.  But,  on  the  whole, 
that  is  of  little  consequence  in  comparison.  And, 
Mr.  Freeman,  when  you  can  get  Congress  to 
understand  that  the  principal  business  they  have 
in  hand,  or  any  honest  man,  is  that  same  affair,  — 
namely,  that  the  people  of  this  country  shall  be 
decent  men  and  women,  living  in  happy  homes,  — 
you  will  have  made  a  great  step.  Your  tariff  leg 
islation,  all  your  revenue  legislation,  all  your  legis 
lation  on  post-office  and  telegraph,  for  a  little 
instance,  ought  to  turn  on  that,  and  that  only. 

"  Well,  to  come  back  to  your  question.  I  think 
all  the  conditions  are  in  our  favor,  as  I  said.  It 
was  a  great  thing  that,  for  years,  each  man  and 
woman  had  to  scrimp  and  save  one  quarter  of  his 
wages  really,  —  that  is  to  say,  was  compelled  to 
save  it,  and  to  deposit  it,  instead  of  having  it  to 
spend.  That  put  us  on  a  very  economical  style  of 
living  at  first,  and  whiskey  must  go,  even  tobacco 
largely,  because  we  had  so  little  money,  any  of  us. 

"  In  the  second  place,  almost  all  the  leaders  — 
I  mean  the  men  with  families,  who  would  be  apt  to 
stick  fast  and  make  up  public  sentiment  —  were 
already  total  abstainers.  This  happened  from  the 
law  of  selection.  For  nobody  could  well  join  us 

26 


402     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

to  go  to  work  on  three  quarter  wages,  unless  he 
had  something  laid  up  in  the  bank.  And  a  drink 
ing  man  is  not  apt  to  have  a  large  bank  account. 

"Then,  so  soon  as  we  got  on  the  eight-hour 
time  schedule,  nobody  had  the  plea,  which  is  a 
perfectly  just  plea,  of  exhaustion.  No  man  had 
a  '  pocket-pistol,'  or  wanted  to  step  round  to  a 
saloon  because  he  was  dead  beat  out  by  being  on 
his  feet  all  day,  or  by  whatever  else  he  had  had 
to  do.  Family  men  went  home;  the  boys  —  by 
which  I  mean  all  the  younger  hands  —  went  round 
to  their  clubs,  or  to  the  reading-room,  or  to  the 
gymnasium,  after  Sheridan  started  it,  or  to  play 
ball,  or  croquet,  or  tennis.  The  open  air  is  always 
a  good  stimulus.  What  did  that  old  Quaker  say 
to  you,  Spinner?  " 

"  He  said,  '  Tell  them  to  plant  trees.  Interest 
them  in  planting  trees.  They  will  become  so 
excited  and  fascinated  as  they  watch  the  trees 
that  they  will  have  no  disposition  to  drink.'  Dear 
old  soul !  He  judged  everybody  by  himself." 

"Yes,"  said  Workman,  "  but  there  was  an  ele 
ment  of  truth  in  the  remark,  as  old  Dr.  Converse 
used  to  say.  Keep  a  young  fellow  in  high  exer 
cise,  in  good  health,  and  in  open  air,  and  the 
temptation  of  liquor  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
After  three  or  four  generations  of  such  life  there 
will  be  little  or  none. 

"  We  encourage,  in  every  way,  —  I  think  Miss 
Jane  Stevens  and  Mr.  Ledger  have  shown  you 
that,  —  all  associations  of  the  young  people  which 


Temperance  403 

will  give  the  stimulus  of  society  in  place  of  the 
stimulus  of  liquor.  The  mistake  about  such  things 
is,  that  your  Useful  Knowledge  kind  of  people 
think  that  everybody  wants  to  be  learning  some 
thing  all  the  time.  That  is  all  nonsense.  The 
appetite  for  learning  can  be  satisfied,  just  as  the 
appetite  for  roast  beef  can  be  satisfied,  —  and 
when  it  is  satisfied,  it  is  nonsense  to  try  to  revive 
it  till  the  time  comes.  Here  is  where  Dick  Sheri 
dan  helps  us,  —  more,  perhaps,  than  he  thought 
when  he  began.  He  was  not  satisfied  that  the 
boys  should  play  cricket  and  base-ball,  without 
giving  their  mothers  and  sisters  and  sweethearts 
comfortable  shady  seats  where  they  could  sit  and 
see  them.  He  encouraged  with  all  his  might  the 
Knights  Templars,  so  that  they  established  that 
restaurant  where  I  met  you  yesterday." 

"  The  Take  it  Easy!'  I  said ;  "  I  was  delighted 
with  the  name." 

They  both  laughed.  "That  is  one  of  Dick's 
notions.  He  had  it  on  the  brain.  He  said  that 
the  hands  must  learn  not  to  hurry  when  they  ate, 
or  as  they  amused  themselves.  Well,  the  Take  it 
Easy  is  a  Co-operation  enterprise.  I  really  believe 
they  pay  a  dividend  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  every 
body  who  drinks  a  glass  of  soda  or  eats  a  bowl  of 
oysters.  Sheridan  joined  in  with  the  Knights  with 
all  his  zeal  to  have  it  carried  through,  and  it  is 
really  now  a  great  comfort  and  convenience  to 
us  all. 

"  You  see  it  was  the  old  stage-house  of  the  place, 


404     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

even  before  there  were  any  mills  here,  —  a  great 
square  brick  tavern,  probably  a  great  deal  too 
large  at  its  best.  We  have  almost  no  travellers 
or  visitors.  In  the  old  regime  here,  they  made  it 
pay,  somehow,  by  keeping  the  bar  pretty  active. 
We  had  abolished  all  that. 

"Accordingly,  very  soon  after  we  were  in  full 
blast,  the  owners  came  to  me  to  know  what  we 
would  do  with  it.  I  did  not  choose  to  be  embar 
rassed  by  them  or  their  notions,  and  Spinner  agreed 
with  me.  We  took  it  off  their  hands  at  a  very  low 
price,  and  it  is  now  a  part  of  the  property  of  this 
company.  Then  we  took  the  same  ground  which 
we  took  about  the  store  and  about  the  tenements. 
We  meant  to  make  our  money  by  manufacturing 
goods.  Our  other  property  must  pay  us  the 
'  idiot's  dividend '  and  the  taxes.  So  the  Knights 
Templars  undertook  to  swing  this  thing.  They 
have  their  own  club-rooms  there,  —  they  have  a 
chess-room,  where  they  play  more  checkers  and 
backgammon  than  chess,  I  think,  —  they  have  a 
billiard-room,  —  they  have  their  own  reading-room. 
But  gradually  the  restaurant  grew,  and  it  now  takes, 
as  you  saw,  the  whole  ground-floor.  The  men  sit 
there  and  talk  politics  and  discuss  boat-races  and 
ball  games.  It  is  a  place  of  resort.  You  can  order 
something  to  drink,  just  as  in  old  times.  But  it  is 
one  of  Eaton's  fifty-seven  temperance  drinks,  and 
nobody  has  a  headache  the  next  morning. 

"  Eaton  sent  them  up  the  man  they  have  there, 
and  he  and  his  wife  have  a  genius  for  making  the 


Temperance  405 

place  attractive.  In  the  first  place  their  things  are 
good.  Their  coffee  is  matchless,  and  their  bouillon. 
Well,  the  place  is  pretty,  —  there  are  always  fresh 
flowers,  and  in  summer  it  is  cool,  and  in  winter  it 
is  warm.  There  is  a  room  where  the  women  can 
look  in,  and  be  by  themselves,  and  have  a  cup  of 
tea  if  they  choose.  They  are  not  locked  out,  and 
come  and  go  as  the  rest  of  us  do.  That  gives  it 
all  a  home  look.  It  breaks  up  all  temptation  to 
have  little  separate  '  treats '  in  little  dirty  club- 
rooms,  that  Goodyear  here  will  give  any  party  a 
much  better  entertainment  than  anybody  else  can, 
and  it  costs  them  less. 

"Now,  observe,  all  this  goes  forward  as  a  thing 
of  course.  But  it  is  not  a  thing  of  course.  You 
do  not  usually  find  what  is  called  a  temperance 
hotel  to  approach  the  Take  it  Easy  in  elegance  or 
neatness  or  attractiveness.  But  nothing  is  said 
about  liquor,  more  than  anything  would  be  said 
about  opium  at  Delmonico's.  They  would  not 
assure  their  guests  there  that  no  opium  was  served, 
—  and  Goodyear  does  not  assure  his  guests  that 
no  liquor  is  served.  '  They  take  it  for  granted/  he 
says,  — '  they  take  it  for  granted  that  I  know  how 
to  keep  a  place  of  resort  for  gentlemen.' " 

So  much  for  what  Workman  meant  by  overcom 
ing  evil  by  good.  But  all  of  them  said,  very  seri 
ously,  that  an  active  temperance  "  propaganda " 
was  necessary,  all  the  same.  Holmes  said  to  me 
that  he  knew  what  temptations  his  boys  and  girls 
were  to  meet,  and  he  wanted  them  to  be  fore- 


406     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

warned.  They  had  the  best  temperance  speak 
ers,  and  had  them  often.  The  Women's  Christian 
Temperance  Union  had  a  branch  there,  the  Tem 
plars,  and  some  of  the  other  societies.  The  boys 
and  girls  grew  up  with  the  feeling  that  when  they 
left  Hampton  to  live  in  larger  places,  where  there 
was  much  temptation,  and  where  they  saw  the  open 
sale  of  liquor  at  the  bar,  that  they  were,  in  some 
sort,  the  apostles  of  a  new  order.  They  had  some 
thing  of  the  pride  which  the  graduate  of  a  well- 
equipped  college  has,  when  he  descends  among 
what  he  thinks,  for  the  time,  inferior  people. 

They  wanted,  if  they  could,  to  do  their  part  in 
extending  a  system  which  they  had  learned  to  love. 
If  they  had  not  had  this  positive  wish  to  be  of  use 
in  the  temperance  cause,  all  the  negative  effect  of 
the  plans  which  had  been  made  for  them  would 
have  been  useless.  But,  as  they  did  wish  to  help 
their  comrades,  they  themselves  were  the  more 


1  It  may  be  as  well  to  say,  in  a  footnote,  that  "Eaton"  is 
Mr.  Charles  Sumner  Eaton,  of  the  Temperance  Spa,  Washington 
St.,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   SAVINGS-BANK 

T  TNDER  the  old  order  of  things  at  Hampton, 
^  before  Thankful  Nourse  and  Spinner  bought 
the  property,  there  had  been  an  old-fashioned 
Savings-Bank.  Such  institutions  have  been  very 
generally  established  in  the  New  England  factory- 
towns,  to  the  very  great  advantage  of  all  concerned. 
The  administration  of  them  has  generally  been 
careful  and  honorable.  The  supervision  by  the 
authorities  of  the  States  is  severe  and  close,  and 
there  have  not  been  many  instances  in  which  the 
depositors  have  lost  anything  by  the  infidelity  of 
the  custodians  or  by  their  carelessness.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  custom  of  depositing  money  even 
in  very  small  sums  in  these  banks  has  become 
general,  it  would  be  almost  fair  to  say  universal. 
In  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  with  a  population  of 
1,976,264,  there  were  last  year  906,039  different 
accounts  in  these  institutions.  This  shows  that 
almost  every  working  man  and  working  woman 
must  have  had  an  account  in  one  of  them  or 
another.  The  average  sum  to  the  credit  of  each 
depositor  was  $321.00,  the  largest  deposit  per- 


408     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

mitted  by  the  law  being  $5000.00.  The  total 
amount  was  $2^i,igy)goo.^6.1  Persons  who  have 
more  money  to  deposit  are  expected  to  place  it  in 
other  investments. 

The  success  of  the  savings-bank  system  in  Amer 
ica  is  largely  due  to  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  con 
ceived.  The  history  of  these  banks  shows  that 
they  were  not  founded  on  the  miserable  ideas  of 
some  bold  speculator,  who  foresaw  the  immense 
sums  which  would  be  at  the  direction  of  their 
managers,  and  was  eager  to  control  the  investment 
of  these  funds.  They  were,  on  the  other  hand, 
set  on  foot  by  high-minded  Christian  people,  who 
were  eager  in  their  wish  to  improve  the  condition 
of  poor  people,  to  give  to  them  the  same  rights  in 
the  use  of  their  little  earnings  which  the  rich  had 
in  the  use  of  theirs,  and  to  encourage,  in  whatever 
way  might  be  possible,  habits  of  prudence  among 
the  work-people  around  them.  It  is  the  proud 
boast  of  one  of  the  associations  of  clergymen  in 
Massachusetts  that  the  savings-bank  of  the  county, 
one  of  the  oldest  in  the  State,  was  created  by  the 
inspiration  given  at  a  "  Ministers'  Meeting,"  as 
the  phrase  of  New  England  calls  the  meeting  of 
the  association.2  The  plan  was  proposed  by  Mrs. 
Joseph  Allen,  herself  in  attendance.  She  had  read 
of  the  success  of  a  similar  plan  set  on  foot  among 
the  philanthropic  people  of  England. 

In  this  spirit,  to  borrow  Mr.  Sherlock's  text 
again,  those  who  had  succeeded  in  business  life  are 

1  The  figures  are  for  1886.        2  The  Worcester  Association. 


The  Savings-Bank  409 

willing  to  bear  the  burdens  of  those  who  are  yet 
to  begin  it.  And  to  their  willingness  is  due  the 
willingness  of  men  of  great  business  ability  to  give 
their  time  and  care  to  the  administration  of  these 
trusts,  without  compensation.  It  is  considered 
almost  a  point  of  honor  among  mercantile  men,  or 
bankers  of  ability  and  position,  to  do  their  part  in 
the  proper  supervision  of  the  savings-banks  of  their 
towns.  It  will  sometimes  happen,  undoubtedly, 
that  a  needy  adventurer  thinks  it  would  be  a  good 
plan  to  establish  a  new  savings-bank,  of  which  he 
may  be  the  active  manager,  with  a  good  salary 
and  the  advantages  which  fall  to  a  man  who  directs 
large  investments.  But  if  the  bank  is  to  succeed, 
it  must  be  able  to  show  the  names  of  a  board  of 
directors  respected  in  the  community  for  business 
sagacity  and  honor.  The  adventurer  who  pro 
poses  it  may  sing  never  so  sweetly,  and  adver 
tise  never  so  widely.  His  bank  will  not  attract 
many  depositors  until  they  know  who  is  to  have 
the  oversight  of  their  money. 

The  direction  of  savings-banks,  then,  so  that  the 
depositors  may  be  sure  of  a  fair  income,  and  that 
their  funds  are  not  wasted,  becomes  one  of  the 
unpaid  public  duties  of  Christian  men,  who  know 
that  all  their  time  and  talents  are  given  to  them  as 
a  trust,  and  who  mean  to  use  their  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  their  fellows. 

The  little  bank  at  Hampton  under  the  old  ad 
ministration  of  the  mills  there,  had  been  well  ad 
ministered,  and  had  kept  its  fair  share  of  deposits 


410     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

from  the  savings  of  the  work-people.  But  when 
hard  times  came,  as  the  pay-days  were  more  un 
certain,  and  when  at  last  the  old  company  failed, 
the  people  had  moved  away,  one  after  another, 
and  had,  of  course,  withdrawn  their  deposits, — 
perhaps,  alas  !  to  pay  the  charges  of  moving ;  or, 
at  best  to  deposit  them  in  banks  nearer  to  their 
new  homes.  As  the  managers  of  the  mills  left, 
they  had  withdrawn,  so  soon  as  they  could,  from 
their  places  on  the  board  of  administration,  and 
the  Savings-Bank  was  little  more  than  a  name  and 
a  sign  on  the  wall  of  the  bank  building,  when  the 
renewal  of  Hampton  began. 

Mr.  Spinner  told  me  that,  as  soon  as  he  got  the 
machinery  into  working  order,  he  called  Mr. 
Nourse's  attention  to  the  necessity  of  awakening 
new  confidence  in  the  bank,  and  found,  to  his 
satisfaction,  that  he  saw  the  necessity  plainly. 
Whatever  else  he  thought  visionary  or  fanciful  in 
the  notions  and  wishes  of  these  working  people,  he 
did  not  think  any  plans  for  saving  money  fanci 
ful.  He  knew  too  well  that  he  should  never  have 
been  a  capitalist  had  he  not,  as  he  said,  "  salted 
down  "  ten  per  cent  of  his  income,  since  he  had 
sold  a  string  of  trout  at  a  hotel  for  a  quarter  of  a 
dollar.  On  Mr.  Spinner's  appeal,  therefore,  he 
agreed  to  be  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  bank,  know 
ing  that  he  could  attend  to  that  duty  without 
personal  attendance  at  all  the  meetings  of  the 
managers.  And  he  interested  himself  personally 
in  inducing  gentlemen  of  position,  character,  and 


The  Savings-Bank  4 1 1 

means  in  the  neighborhood  to  take  necessary 
trust  and  care  of  its  management.  When  they 
took  the  bank  in  hand,  the  deposits  were  at  the 
very  lowest  ebb.  But,  with  the  improvement  in 
the  prosperity  of  Hampton,  the  working  men  and 
women,  and  even  the  children,  began  to  open  their 
accounts.  The  bank  received  as  small  sums  as 
five  cents  at  a  time,  and  began  to  allow  interest  on 
the  first  of  every  month  after  the  deposit  was 
made.  It  does  not  take  long  to  teach  young 
people  what  is  the  value  of  an  arrangement  by 
which  their  little  wealth  grows  while  they  are 
asleep,  or  seems  to  do  so.  And  with  the  steadi 
ness  of  management,  and  the  evident  care  taken 
of  their  property  by  men  who  were  among  the  most 
distinguished  in  the  neighborhood,  almost  all  the 
people  of  Hampton  were  disposed  to  place  their 
earnings,  as  far  as  they  could  save  them,  for  a 
few  months  in  the  keeping  of  the  savings-bank. 

Spinner  said  that,  so  far,  their  experience  was 
only  the  same  as  that  of  hundreds  of  other  insti 
tutions  of  the  same  kind  in  different  parts  of  the 
Northern  States,  and  he  said  that  he  did  not  know 
but  that  their  bank  would  have  remained  exactly 
like  all  other  American  savings-banks,  but  from  the 
accident  that  they  had  a  German  named  SchefTer 
at  the  head  of  the  dyeing-room.  Scheffer  came  to 
Spinner  one  day  in  a  good  deal  of  indignation,  and 
it  was  some  time  before  Spinner  found  out  what 
the  matter  was.  The  German  had  been  a  depos 
itor  in  the  bank  from  the  very  beginning,  and  this, 


412      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Spinner,  who  was  one  of  the  directors,  knew  per 
fectly  well.  His  wife  was  another,  a  nephew  he 
had  was  another,  a  grown-up  son  had  a  small 
deposit,  and  one  or  two  of  the  children  had  bank 
books  also,  with  their  little  savings  entered  upon 
them.  Spinner  had  always  supposed  that  Scheffer 
was  one  of  the  people  best  satisfied  with  the 
arrangements  of  the  bank,  as  he  had  often  heard 
him  speak  in  a  cordial  way  of  the  simplicity  and 
dignity  with  which  its  business  was  conducted. 
He  was  all  the  more  surprised  on  this  particular 
occasion,  which  proved  to  be  a  critical  occasion,  to 
find  that  Scheffer  was  in  a  rage  with  the  whole 
management  of  the  institution,  had  given  notice 
that  he  should  withdraw  his  funds  on  the  first 
possible  day  when  he  had  the  right  to  do  so,  and 
that  every  one  in  his  room  would  do  the  same. 
Spinner  soothed  him  as  well  as  he  could,  made 
him  tell  the  whole  story  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end,  and  then  was  amazed  to  find  that  the  Ger 
man  was  disappointed  and  disgusted  because  the 
treasurer  of  the  bank  had  refused  to  discount  a 
little  note  for  him. 

Spinner  at  once  entered  on  an  explanation,  in  as 
moderate  and  gentle  language  as  he  could,  to  show 
his  German  friend  that  such  a  thing  was  utterly  un 
heard  of  in  the  savings-banks  of  New  England  as  a 
small  discount  on  a  small  note,  given  on  personal 
security.  He  tried  to  make  Scheffer  understand 
that  the  general  policy,  from  the  beginning  of 
these  institutions,  had  been  to  avoid  any  resem- 


The  Savings-Bank  413 

blance  to  the  working  of  the  ordinary  banks  of 
discount,  and  that  they  had  been  administered  also 
as  trust  funds,  in  which,  naturally  enough,  the 
larger  the  investment  the  better  for  the  persons 
concerned,  because  there  is  the  less  expense  of 
handling  and  oversight.  He  cited  to  him  that  re 
mark  of  Josiah  Quincy's,  which  has  been  already 
quoted  in  another  part  of  this  essay.  He  said, 
with  some  humor,  that  the  palaces  of  Boston  were 
built  with  the  money  of  the  servant-girls  of  Boston. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  those  servant-girls  have 
given  to  the  great  savings-banks  the  money  which 
those  banks  lend  out,  on  the  perfect  security  of 
mortgages,  on  the  palaces  of  which  Mr.  Quincy 
was  speaking.  Spinner  tried  to  explain  to  his 
angry  friend  that  if  he  wanted  a  little  money,  he 
himself  would  gladly  be  his  security  on  a  note 
which  he  could  carry  to  the  nearest  bank  of  dis 
count,  which  was  at  Wentworth,  the  large  town  of 
the  neighborhood.  He  told  him  that  he  would  find 
that  he  was  perfectly  well  known  to  the  directors 
there,  and  that  they  would  be  very  glad  to  accom 
modate  him,  if  he  would  take  such  a  note  as  he 
proposed.  Spinner  said  to  him  :  "  I  had  occasion 
to  borrow  a  little  money  a  fortnight  ago,  and  I 
went  over  there,  with  a  note  indorsed  by  Freeman, 
and  they  lent  me  the  money  gladly.  That  is  what 
they  are  for,  and  that  is  the  place  for  you  to  go  to." 
Scheffer  was  toned  down  a  little  when  he  found 
that  his  character  had  not  been  intentionally 
assailed  by  the  treasurer  of  the  bank,  and  was 


414     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

soothed  as  Spinner  persuaded  him  that  his  repu 
tation  had  extended  as  far  as  Wentworth  and 
farther.  But  when  the  first  tempest  of  his  rage 
was  over,  he  continued  to  talk  on  the  subject,  and 
to  show  what  he  thought  the  narrowness  of  the 
restriction  by  which  the  treasurer  had  been  bound. 
He  then  told  Spinner,  what  Spinner  told  me  he 
did  not  know  before,  that  in  his  own  country  the 
bank  of  savings  where  he  made  his  deposits  would 
have  been  at  the  same  time  a  bank  of  discount, 
not  in  general  business,  but  restricted  to  a  business 
with  those  very  persons  who  made  the  deposits. 
He  explained  to  him  the  system,  simple  enough  in 
operation,  though  a  little  complicated  in  descrip 
tion,  by  which  the  bank  secures  itself  absolutely 
for  the  small  loans  which  it  made  to  its  depositors. 
It  might  happen  that  a  man  wanted,  for  temporary 
purposes,  such  as  the  furnishing  of  his  house,  or 
the  education  of  one  of  his  children,  a  sum  of 
money  larger  than  he  had  himself  on  deposit  in 
the  bank.  He  would  want  to  borrow  this  money, 
and  he  would  have  friends  enough  among  the 
other  depositors  who  were  confident  in  his  integ 
rity,  or  confident  in  the  purpose  for  which  he 
needed  the  funds,  to  assist  him  with  their  credit, 
as  far  as  it  would  go.  What  is  the  measure  of 
such  people's  credit?  Clearly  enough  it  is,  so  far 
as  the  bank  is  concerned,  estimated  with  perfect 
accuracy  by  the  deposits  which  they  have  in  that 
institution.  If,  then,  Scheffer  wanted  to  borrow 
five  hundred  dollars,  as  in  this  case  he  did  want  to 


The  Savings-Bank  415 

borrow  that  amount,  if  he  had  on  deposit  only 
three  hundred  dollars,  the  bank  would,  with  perfect 
willingness,  lend  him  the  whole  sum,  if  he  would 
bring  them  a  note  signed  by  himself  and  by  two  of 
his  companions,  each  of  whom  had  deposits  of  the 
same  amount  with  his  own,  it  being  understood 
upon  the  face  of  the  note  that  they  were  not  to 
draw  upon  their  deposit  until  the  note  was  paid, 
and  that  the  note  constituted  a  lien,  of  which 
the  bank  could  avail  itself  as  security  for  these 
indorsements.  Of  course  no  security  could  be 
more  absolute.  The  bank  itself  holds  the  very 
property  from  which  the  debt  could  be  paid,  if  it 
should  prove  that  the  indorsers  must  be  called 
upon.  Scheffer  explained  to  Spinner,  what  Spin 
ner  did  not  know,  that  there  were  thousands  of 
such  banks  in  Germany,  carrying  on  the  double 
business  of  receiving  small  deposits  and  making 
small  loans  to  the  depositors. 

It  is  perfectly  true  to  say,  in  theory,  that 
the  ordinary  New  England  system  comes  out 
at  the  same  thing.  In  the  ordinary  New  Eng 
land  system,  the  depositor  places  his  money  in 
the  savings-bank,  the  savings-bank  loans  the 
money  in  considerable  sums  to  capitalists  and 
others  who  handle  considerable  sums,  and  the 
bank  and  the  depositor  then  receive  the  advan 
tage  of  the  interest  paid  upon  such  loans.  If  it 
happens  that  the  depositor  wants  bank  accommo 
dation,  he  goes  to  an  entirely  different  institution,  — 
as  in  this  case  Scheffer  would  have  to  go  to  the 


41 6     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

bank  of  discount  at  Wentworth,  —  and  he  avails 
himself  there  of  such  credit  as  he  has,  founded 
upon  his  property  or  upon  his  reputation,  and 
borrows  the  money  he  needs.  Or,  without  bor 
rowing  money,  he  withdraws  the  whole  of  his  de 
posit,  uses  that  in  his  speculation,  whatever  it  is, 
and  when  the  speculation  is  ended,  makes  his  de 
posit  anew.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  all  this 
means  in  practice  is,  that  it  shall  be  difficult,  not 
to  say  impossible,  for  dealers  in  money  on  a  small 
scale  to  obtain  money  at  banks  of  discount.  The 
banks  of  discount  do  not  want  such  customers; 
human  nature  is  weak,  and  the  average  cashier  of 
a  bank  prefers  to  deal  with  large  customers  rather 
than  with  small  customers,  and  to  have  its  business 
conducted  in  large  sums  rather  than  in  small  sums. 
In  practice,  therefore,  a  man  who  wants  to  borrow 
small  sums  of  money  is  obliged  to  borrow  in  the 
expensive  and  cumbrous  system  which  sends  him 
to  a  pawnbroker,  and  his  range  of  credit  is  only 
as  large  as  that  very  limited  range  which  can  be 
represented  by  the  articles  which  he  can  put  in 
deposit  as  security  for  his  loan. 

The  German  system,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  to 
the  man  exactly  the  credit  that  he  is  entitled  to. 
It  enables  his  friends,  though  they  be  in  the  hum 
blest  walks  of  life,  and  be  persons  of  very  little 
means,  to  come  to  his  assistance,  for  whatever  pur 
pose  he  needs  money,  just  as  far  as  their  means 
will  go  and  they  are  disposed.  In  this  particular 
case  of  Scheffer's,  where  his  anger  had  been  so  in- 


The  Savings-Bank  417 

tensely  excited  by  the  refusal  of  the  treasurer,  he 
had  offered  to  the  treasurer  absolute  security  for 
every  cent  he  wanted  to  borrow,  and  had  offered 
it  to  him  in  the  very  simple  form  of  proposing  to 
place  with  him  the  bank-books  of  his  friends, 
amounting  to  a  sum  much  larger  than  that  he  pro 
posed  to  borrow.  The  treasurer  had  refused,  be 
cause  he  was  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  such  things. 
This  reason,  usually  alleged  by  persons  in  such 
positions,  had  not  satisfied  Scheffer,  and  hence  his 
towering  rage. 

It  was  in  every  way  desirable  to  conciliate  Schef 
fer  in  this  particular  instance.  The  directors  of 
the  bank  did  not  want  to  have  one  important  sub- 
department  of  the  bank  alienated,  nor  did  they 
want  to  have  the  German  part  of  their  constituency 
disaffected  to  their  management.  Mr.  Spinner, 
therefore,  brought  the  matter  up  at  the  next 
directors'  meeting.  And,  in  the  first  place,  it  was 
voted  that  the  security  offered  by  Mr.  Scheffer  for 
the  loan  he  wanted  was  entirely  satisfactory,  and 
that  the  treasurer  be  directed  to  lend  to  him  the 
amount  he  asked  for,  as  soon  as  he  had  that 
amount  for  use.  But,  what  was  much  more  impor 
tant,  a  committee  was  appointed,  which  should 
draw  up  a  practicable  plan,  in  which  any  one  of 
the  depositors  might  borrow  money  in  small  sums 
if  he  needed,  even  though  the  sum -asked  for  was 
larger  than  he  had  on  deposit  himself,  if  he  offered 
the  names,  as  his  indorsers,  of  men  who  had  them 
selves  deposits  equal  to  the  amount  borrowed ; 

27 


4i 8      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

these  depositors  giving  the  amount  they  had  in  the 
bank  as  their  security  for  the  fulfilment  of  their 
obligation.  All  this,  of  course,  made  it  necessary 
to  open  some  new  books,  and,  indeed,  developed  a 
side  of  the  bank  which  was  not  contemplated  in 
the  system  to  which  it  belonged.  But  it  did  not 
prove  that  it  required  any  new  legislation,  for  these 
banks  always  had  the  power  to  lend  money  on 
personal  security,  if  this  security  were  satisfactory 
to  the  directors,  and  were  such  that  they  could 
readily  call  in  the  amount  which  they  had  lent, 
when  the  exigencies  of  the  bank  required.  Clearly 
enough,  no  security  could  be  better  than  that  which 
these  directors  had,  for  the  funds  of  the  indorsers 
and  the  principal  were  in  their  own  keeping,  and 
they  were  responsible  for  them. 

The  old-fashioned  theory,  in  favor  of  which 
much  may  be  said,  is,  that  it  is  not  well  to  facilitate 
the  borrowing  of  money  when  the  borrower  is 
poor.  The  proverb,  which,  though  somewhat  ir 
reverent,  is  quite  true,  might  have  a  wider  applica 
tion  to  advantage.  It  says  that  "  Debt  is  the 
devil."  In  the  sense  intended,  it  is  very  desirable 
that  everybody,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  should  take 
to  heart  the  lesson  which  is  involved  in  this  epi 
grammatic  expression.  At  the  same  time,  as 
every  man  of  affairs  knows,  it  is  necessary  some 
times  that  a  man  who  has  no  ready  money,  but 
has  other  property,  should  be  able  to  borrow 
ready  money  on  the  security  of  that  property.  It 
is  impossible  to  give  any  fair  reason  why  this  privi- 


The  Savings-Bank  419 

lege  should  not  be  open  to  poor  men  as  it  is  open 
to  rich  men,  in  proportion  to  the  property  which 
they  have  to  offer  for  their  security.  The  poor 
man  is  as  eager  to  take  care  of  his  little  as  the  rich 
man  is  to  take  care  of  his  great.  Probably  it  will 
prove  that  the  poor  man  is  more  watchful  over  the 
sum  which  he  has  to  put  at  risk  than  is  the  man 
who  is  used  to  larger  advantages.  In  such  a  case 
as  we  had  under  our  eyes  at  Hampton,  there  was 
really  no  danger  that  the  friends  and  neighbors  of 
Schefifer  should  be  less  anxious  for  the  security  of 
their  little  property  than  he  was  for  the  security 
of  his.  They  did  not  give  their  indorsements  with 
out  such  consideration  as  they  thought  sufficient. 
It  was  nobody's  business  what  those  considerations 
were,  —  whether  they  were  considerations  of  friend 
ship,  gratitude,  or  some  greedy  hope  that  in  the 
future  he  would  do  the  like  by  them.  It  was  no 
body's  business  to  inquire  as  to  their  motives,  or 
as  to  what  the  result  would  be  to  them.  So  far  as 
the  bank  officers  had  anything  to  do  with  the  mat 
ter,  they  had  to  preserve  the  property  which  was 
intrusted  to  them,  and  to  invest  it  safely.  This 
they  were  able  to  do,  at  some  expense  of  worry 
and  time  in  the  account-keeping,  by  as  simple  an 
arrangement  as  that  which  was  adopted. 

And  it  had  not  proved  that  the  people  were 
misled  into  any  extravagant  speculations  by  such 
a  convenient  arrangement  for  borrowing  small 
sums  of  money.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  a  man  of 
good  reputation  and  established  position  could  in- 


420     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

duce  fellow-dopositors  to  indorse  his  note  so  that 
he  could  borrow  money.  But  he  could  not  do 
this  unless  he  showed  them  why  he  wanted  the 
money,  and  unless  they  had  reason  to  believe  he 
would  be  able  to  meet  his  note  and  theirs  when  it 
became  due.  The  friends  whom  I  talked  with  had 
satisfied  themselves  that  the  system  worked  well, 
and  expressed  their  surprise  that  it  had  not  been 
more  generally  introduced  as  a  part  of  the  practice 
of  the  smaller  savings-banks  of  the  country. 

In  one  of  our  talks  about  the  bank  and  its  results 
I  asked  some  general  questions  about  their  chari 
ties. 

Mr.  Spinner  said  in  reply  that  if  I  lived  with 
them  a  little  longer  I  should  see  that  they  were 
just  like  other  people,  and  that  they  did  not  need 
any  other  organization  of  charity  or  institutions 
for  taking  care  of  the  sick  or  aged  than  other 
people  did.  "  Because  a  man  works  in  a  mill,  he 
is  not  a  different  sort  of  man.  Half  the  absurdities 
which  get  into  print  about  what  they  call  the  '  labor 
problem/  and,  worse  than  that,  sometimes  come 
into  disastrous  action,  spring  from  this  notion,  that 
the  world  is  divided  into  men  and  women  and 
'  operatives.'  '  Operatives '  is  a  Latin  word  which 
has  been  chosen  to  represent  this  outside  being, 
who  is  not  exactly  human.  Now,  if  he  had  three 
legs,  or  two  mouths,  or  walked  on  his  head,  it 
might  be  all  right  to  classify  him  so,  and  to  pro 
vide  for  him  separately.  But,  —  as  he  is  just  like 
other  men,  —  as  he  is  like  farmers  and  sailors  and 


The  Savings-Bank  421 

lawyers,  it  seems  more  possible  to  treat  him  as 
other  men  are  treated,  and  not  to  undertake  to 
separate  him  off  into  a  class,  as  people  call  it,  with 
its  peculiar  institutions,  whether  of  charity  or  gov 
ernment  or  other  arrangement  of  civil  order." 

I  had  learned  by  this  time  that  this  was  a  matter 
about  which  Spinner  felt  rather  extravagantly,  and 
which  he  discussed  rather  warmly.  I  had  no  wish 
to  provoke  an  angry  discussion,  but  I  said  that  I 
did  not  mean  to  offend  him.  "  But  certainly  there 
are  differences,"  I  said,  "  between  the  hands  in  the 
Hampton  mills  and  as  many  farmers  in  the  valley 
above  and  the  valley  below.  The  great  difference 
is  that  they  have  to  work  when  the  mill  works. 
Their  hours  of  work  have  to  fit  in  with  the  hours 
when  the  machinery  is  going.  Now  the  farmer 
works  fifteen  hours  a  day,  or  five  hours  a  day,  or 
none.  In  this  distinction  there  is  a  difference,  and 
it  is  as  well  to  acknowledge  it." 

By  this  time  Spinner  had  cooled  down,  and  he 
said  he  hoped  he  had  not  spoken  too  warmly. 
"  But  the  truth  is,"  said  he,  "  that  you  have  stated 
precisely  the  distinction,  such  as  it  is,  between  us 
here  and  other  work-people.  These  young  men 
whom  you  see  in  my  room  are  not  chained  to  this 
machinery.  That  one  whom  I  call  Bob  came  to 
me  this  morning  to  say  that  he  had  engaged  for 
the  next  summer  with  the  people  at  Mount  Pleasant. 
He  is  to  be  at  the  head  of  their  livery  stable  there. 
The  man  who  brought  me  the  patterns  just  now 
has  been  out  in  Dakota  with  his  brother,  who  has 


422     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

a  farm  there.  He  will  go  again,  one  of  these  days, 
—  is,  indeed,  of  rather  a  restless  turn,  —  but  I  sup 
pose  that  is  good  for  him.  And  the  girls  and 
women  come  and  go  in  the  same  fashion. 

"Now,  to  answer  your  question,  as  perhaps  I 
should  have  done  before,  such  people,  living  in  the 
same  life  as  the  rest  of  the  world,  need  no  special 
system  for  their  old  age,  or  their  sickness,  or  '  other 
infirmity.'  What  is  good  for  farmers  or  lawyers 
or  editors  or  doctors  is  good  for  them.  But  they 
need  nothing  more,  and  they  take  nothing  up. 
When  you  come  to  speak  of  Lowell,  or  Phila 
delphia,  or  Chicago,  you  speak  of  something  dif 
ferent  from  Hampton.  But  you  need  higher 
organization  of  your  charities  there,  not  because 
you  are  dealing  with  workmen,  but  because  you 
are  dealing  with  large  cities.  As  to  large  cities  — 
well,  I  am  very  much  of  Jefferson's  notion." 

"  What  was  that?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  he  said  large  cities  are  large  sores.  I 
think  Sallust  thought  so.  To  go  back.  It  is  true, 
and  I  am  rather  proud  to  say  it,  that  the  English 
workingmen,  and  not  the  French  theorists,  devel 
oped  and  worked  out  all  the  detail  of  the  magnifi 
cent  Friendly  Societies,  which,  under  one  name  or 
another,  cover  the  whole  land,  and  make  what  is 
technically  called  '  charity '  the  less  necessary. 
Providence,  prudence,  is  a  great  deal  better  than 
charity.  And  if  a  '  Forester/  or  a  *  Druid/  or  an 
'  Odd  Fellow '  has  had  at  once  the  Christian  kind 
ness  and  the  Saxon  good  sense  to  pay  regularly 


The  Savings-Bank  423 

his  monthly  dues  to  the  lodge,  or  camp,  or  chapter 
of  the  order  to  which  he  belongs,  why,  he  has  saved 
society  no  end  of  trouble  in  bothering  about  his 
widow  and  his  orphans.  I  am  not  a  Freemason. 
But  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  their  arrangements 
for  mutual  help,  or  what  is  really  a  sickness  and 
death  insurance,  have  been  very  much  enlarged  in 
the  last  half-century.  However  that  is,  I  am  sure 
that  these  other  orders,  Rechabites,  Knights  of 
Honor,  Odd  Fellows,  Druids,  Foresters,  Sons  of 
Temperance,  and  the  rest,  give  to  everybody 
opportunities  for  providing  for  an  evil  day,  so 
general  and  so  careful  that  we  have  no  need  of 
establishing  separate  plans  of  our  own,  in  as  small 
a  place  as  Hampton. 

"  It  all  comes  to  mutual  insurance.  In  fact,  as 
you  know,  some  of  the  associations  simply  take 
the  name  of  Mutual  Insurance  Companies.  Some 
of  them,  indeed,  do  not  collect  their  dues  until  the 
exact  occasion  comes  when  the  money  is  needed. 
In  a  small  club  of  a  thousand  members  you  will 
receive  a  note  which  says  that  our  brother,  Mr. 
Jones,  fell  from  a  roof  yesterday,  or  died  with 
typhoid,  or  was  drowned  at  sea  last  week,  and  that 
the  Secretary  knows  you  will  be  glad  to  pay  two 
dollars,  as  you  are  bound  to  do,  by  the  way,  for 
the  fund  now  due  to  his  widow.  Well,  there  is  a 
certain  advantage  in  that  plan.  You  see,  and  can 
not  help  seeing,  how  good  a  thing  you  are  engaged 
in.  You  are  sorry  for  the  widow;  you  are  glad 
you  did  not  fall  from  the  roof  yourself.  And  you 


424     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

pay  your  two  dollars  with  a  sort  of  personal  interest 
that  a  man  does  not  always  feel  in  paying  a  money 
assessment.  But,  of  course,  the  principle  is  the 
same.  You  are  trained  to  laying  up  something  for 
an  evil  day ;  and —  here  is  the  important  thing  — 
you  are  trained  to  remember  that  no  misfortune 
comes  to  you  that  is  not '  common  to  man,'  as  the 
Bible  says.  You  are  trained  to  do  your  part,  as  a 
Christian  man,  for  all  the  others. 

"  For,  no  matter  what  name  the  thing  takes,  all 
this  mutual  provision  and  care  is  a  part  of  the 
Christian  religion.  It  is  all  part  of  'The  Way.' 
It  was  set  on  foot  by  Jesus  Christ,  as  distinctly  as 
if  he  had  dictated  the  constitution  of  a  company 
to  Saint  Peter.  If  we  were  each  and  all  so  many 
separate,  selfish  bodies,  we  should  not  do  such 
things.  It  is  because  we  are  children  of  God, 
whom  Christ  died  to  save,  that  we  do  such  things, 
and  encourage  other  people  to  do  them.  Whether 
a  lodge  meeting  opens  with  prayer  or  not,  all  the 
same  it  was  founded  the  day  Jesus  Christ  was 
born,  and  it  never  would  exist  were  it  not  for  his 
Gospel." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WORK  AND   LABOR 

I  WAS  to  make  a  little  speech  at  a  picnic  of  a 
few  of  the  hands  one  afternoon,  and  I  asked 
Mr.  Spinner's  advice  as  to  what  I  should  say. 

"  Pray  speak  to  them  as  you  would  speak  to  any 
body  else,"  he  said,  reverting  to  his  old  sensitive 
feeling  of  dislike  for  anything  which,  in  our  hard 
working  country,  made  workmen  into  a  "  class." 
"  But  if  you  must  make  distinctions,  do  not  call 
us  '  laborers/  and  do  not  talk  of  the  '  dignity  of 
labor.' " 

"  Why  not?  "  said  I,  dully  enough.  "  Is  not  all 
that  you  do  intended  to  give  dignity  to  labor,  and 
are  you  not  all  laborers?  " 

"  No,"  said  Spinner,  with  an  intentional  expres 
sion  of  indignation.  "  I  am  afraid  that  there  are 
one  or  two  laboring  men  about,  digging  post-holes, 
or  at  work  in  the  bottom  of  the  flume,  but  they  are 
all  trying  to  rise  from  the  grade  of  laborers  to 
the  grade  of  workmen.  Labor  is  always  wearing, 
fatiguing,  repulsive,  and  every  man  who  is  a  man 
is  always  trying  to  replace  it  by  some  less  wearing, 
less  repulsive,  and  less  fatiguing  process.  That  is 


426     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

to  say,  the  whole  of  what  you  call  civilization  con 
sists  in  substituting  Work,  which  is  the  conquest 
of  matter  by  spirit,  for  Labor,  in  which  a  man 
throws  his  own  dead  weight  or  muscle  against  the 
dead  weight  of  the  clod  he  is  handling." 

Here  was  a  bit  of  philology  which  interested  me, 
and  I  made  Spinner  follow  it  out.  He  said  that  it 
had  been  an  immense  satisfaction  to  him  when  the 
late  Dr.  Bethune  of  Brooklyn  called  his  attention 
to  the  radical  distinction  between  the  two  words. 
He  told  me  that  I  should  find  the  distinction  care 
fully  carried  out  in  the  English  Bible.  He  said 
that  God  is  always  spoken  of  as  working,  never  as 
laboring.  He  said  that  when  the  righteous  die, 
they  cease  from  their  labors^  but  their  works  follow 
them,  —  for  that  angels  and  archangels  are  fellow- 
workers  with  God  himself.  Labors,  he  said,  are 
spoken  of  in  the  correct  English  of  the  Bible  as  we 
speak  of  toils,  or  drudgery,  with  persecutions  and 
shipwrecks,  and  other  finite  necessities  of  a  finite 
world.  But  Paul  and  the  other  saints  are  always 
hoping  to  be  released  from  their  labors,  while  they, 
also,  like  angels  and  archangels,  are  glad  to  be 
fellow-workmen  with  God.  He  even  said  that  the 
one  place  where  Paul  called  himself  a  fellow- 
laborer  with  God,  in  our  Bible,  was  a  slip  of  the 
translators,  and  that  it  had  been  corrected  in  the 
Revised  Version. 

I  asked  him  if  Dr.  Bethune  had  ever  printed  his 
study  of  this  subject.  He  said  he  had  never  seen 
his  address  in  print.  But  he  gave  me  an  address 


Work  and  Labor  427 

of  his  own,  which  I  am  glad  to  copy  here.  For 
Spinner's  mock  rage  was  really  sublime,  when  he 
ridiculed  the  stump  orators  who  came  up  to  politi 
cal  meetings  in  October  about  the  "  dignity  of 
labor."  "  Probably  not  one  of  them  ever  did  an 
honest  day's  work  in  his  life,"  Spinner  said  grimly. 
"  If  he  had,  he  would  talk  about  the  dignity  of 
work,  and  leave  labor  where  it  belongs."  I  chaffed 
Spinner  a  little,  for  I  told  him  he  was  himself  mak 
ing  the  classification  against  which  he  warned  me, 
—  only  he  was  making  a  class  of  laborers. 

"  I  make  a  class  of  laborers ! "  he  cried ; 
"  Heaven  forbid  !  No,  I  am  doing  all  I  can  to  re 
duce  the  amount  of  necessary  labor,  and  to  sub 
stitute  work  for  it,  —  as  when  the  steam  derrick 
lifts  those  stones,  which  ten  years  ago  would  have 
been  lifted  by  the  labor  of  men."  And  on  this  I 
went  off  to  prepare  myself  for  the  picnic  by  read 
ing  the  lecture. 

It  had  been  prepared  for  one  of  their  own  ly- 
ceum  courses.  But  I  saw  by  the  notes  on  the 
cover  that  he  had  delivered  it  in  a  good  many  of 
the  neighboring  towns ;  and  when  I  read  it,  I  was 
glad  that  it  had  been  favorably  received.  For,  as 
the  reader  will  see,  the  doctrine  of  the  lecture  went 
a  good  deal  beyond  a  mere  speculation  on  the  use 
of  English  words,  and  involved  a  good  many  ot 
the  principles  on  which  the  social  order  of  our 
modern  life  depends. 

After  an  introduction  half  in  joke,  in  which  he 
described,  with  a  good  deal  of  humor,  the  political 


428      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

shyster,  who  appears  once  a  year,  posing  as  the 
"  friend  of  labor,"  Spinner  went  into  the  etymology 
of  the  words  "  labor  "  and  "  work."  He  cited  from 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  expressions  which  showed 
their  use  of  them. 

That  is,  he  contrasted 

"  Painful  labors  both  by  sea  and  land  " 
against 

"  Come,  let  us  to  our  holy  work  again.'* 

And  he  took  from  Milton, 

"  Body  shall  up  to  spirit  work," 
and, 

"  Our  better  part  remains  to  work  in  close  design," 

which  he  contrasted  against  the  phrase, 

"  Those  afflictions  you  now  labor  under." 

"  But  this  classical  use  of  language,  if  I  may  so 
call  it,  is  not  yet  old-fashioned.  Go  out  on  the 
platform  of  a  railroad  station,  —  go  forward  and 
speak  to  the  engineer.  '  We  are  not  on  time,  Mr. 
Stevenson.  What's  the  matter?'  'I  don't  just 
know,  sir,  but  she  labors  badly  on  the  up-grade.' 
But  suppose  it  is  the  other  way,  and  you  say  to 
your  Mr.  Stevenson,  '  You  're  running  on  time  to 
night.'  '  Ah,  yes,'  he  says,  with  a  broad  grin ;  '  she 
works  well.'  That  man  knows  the  difference  be 
tween  '  labor,'  which  always  wears  out,  —  that  is 
what  the  word  means  in  Latin,  —  and  '  work,'  which 
never  hurt  anybody  or  anything  when  it  was  used 


Work  and  Labor  429 

in  the  proper  way  and  the  proper  proportion. 
They  would  tell  you  the  same  thing  when  the  Puri 
tan  ran  her  race  against  the  Galatea.  If  the  sailing- 
master  were  satisfied,  he  would  nod  his  head,  and 
he  would  say,  '  Does  she  not  work  well?'  And  if 
he  were  dissatisfied,  —  why,  if  the  man  did  not 
swear,  it  would  be  well,  but  he  would  be  sure 
to  say  that  she  '  labored '  with  every  wave  of  the 
sea. 

"The  Digger  Indian,  so  long  as  he  digs  with 
his  hands,  is  a  fit  type  of  the  laborer.  Robinson 
Crusoe,  —  when  he  was  flung  upon  the  beach, 
without  any  tools,  to  work  with  his  bare  hands 
and  feet,  —  he  was  a  laborer.  He  had  to  bend 
down  the  trees  to  make  his  wigwam.  If  he  was 
heavy  enough,  —  if  they  broke  where  he  wanted, 
or  bent  as  he  chose,  —  happy  for  him,  —  he  was 
a  successful  laborer.  But  it  was  his  dead  weight, 
and  the  dead  pull  of  his  muscles,  by  which  he 
succeeded.  Robinson  Crusoe,  when  he  put  a 
lever  under  a  stone,  so  that  with  half  the  labor 
he  could  do  the  same  work,  became  a  workman. 
Why,  as  lately  as  when  the  dam  was  built  here, 
which  holds  back  the  water  for  our  mills,  the 
drilling  of  the  holes  *  in  the  granite  for  the  split 
ting  of  the  stone  was  all  so  much  dead  labor. 
Ten  or  twelve  good  fellows  —  how  I  pity  them, 
and  so  do  you  —  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  quarry 
there,  with  ten  or  twelve  heavy  drills,  and  all 
day  long  had  to  thump,  thump,  thump,  as  they 
made  the  long  holes  into  the  hard  stone  for  the 


430     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

blast  of  the  evening.  Did  my  friend,  the  Hon 
orable  Slippery  Gabbletongue,  go  up  and  tell 
them  that  labor  was  honorable?  Did  he  tell  them 
so  in  a  practical  way,  by  taking  any  man's  drill 
from  him,  and  sending  him  off  to  the  next  pri 
mary  meeting  while  he  drilled?  Not  he.  Mr. 
Gabbletongue  was  in  the  drummer's  room,  up  at 
the  hotel,  preparing  his  notes  on  the  '  toil-worn 
craftsman.'  The  ten  or  twelve  good  fellows 
thumped  away  there,  till  one  fine  day  a  real  re 
former,  a  man  who  knew  the  difference  between 
labor  and  work,  looked  in  upon  them.  And  he 
set  up  —  you  have  seen  it  —  a  little  portable 
boiler  and  engine  there.  As  long  as  he  wanted, 
it  drove,  not  ten  drills,  but  thirty.  And  one  or 
two  good  fellows  tended  the  drills,  in  careful  and 
delicate  work,  while  the  little  spitting  engine  did 
all  the  labor.  And  your  friend,  Mr.  Willing, 
tended  the  gauges  and  the  escape-valve,  and  lay 
in  the  shade  and  read  Henry  George,  or  wrote 
a  love-letter.  He  and  his  two  workmen  did 
three  times  what  was  done  before.  And  this 
was  because  they  substituted  a  little  intelligent 
work  for  a  great  deal  of  unintelligent  labor. 

"  Simply,  my  friends,  the  advance  which  the 
world  has  made  in  its  commerce,  its  manufac 
ture,  and  all  its  social  order,  since  the  year  1775, 
—  when  Watt  and  Bolton  spoke  the  word  and 
freed  the  people,  —  has  been  in  this  line  of  the 
diminution  of  labor,  while  true  work  is  substi 
tuted  in  its  place.  I  rode  into  the  woods,  fifty 


Work  and  Labor  431 

miles  up  the  river,  last  fall.  What  did  I  find 
there?  I  found  a  settler  clearing  out  his  farm, 
in  a  new  precinct.  Was  he  swinging  the  axe, 
as  the  '  grand  old  man '  does  when  he  wants  to 
take  exercise?  He  was  reading  a  newspaper. 
He  had  one  of  Whittier  and  Woodruff's  little 
horse-powers  by  the  road,  —  he  had  his  old  gray 
nag  at  work  in  it;  his  boy  Tom  was  training  a 
circular  saw  upon  the  log  in  question ;  and  in  a 
tenth  part  of  the  time  which  the  laboring  man 
would  have  needed  with  his  axe,  the  old  gray 
had  done  the  business.  Labor  was  relegated  to 
the  brutes,  —  where  in  the  end  it  belongs,  —  and 
intelligent  work  was  there  in  its  place. 

"But  it  is  not  brutes  alone,  or  chiefly,  who 
are  thus  drawn  into  the  service  of  man  to  take 
his  labors  for  him.  There  are  these  giants  whom 
man  has  created,  —  whom  he  commands,  —  as 
Aladdin  commanded  his  slaves.  It  is  a  slavery, 
thank  God,  without  a  lash  or  a  scar.  Watt  and 
Bolton  first,  and  since  them  more  inventors  than 
can  be  named,  coming  down  to  our  own  Corliss 
and  so  many  of  our  American  inventors,  have  been 
calling  into  being  these  giants,  whose  bones  are  of 
wood  and  iron  and  brass  and  steel,  and  bidding 
them  do  our  bidding.  And  here  at  the  Falls, 
you  have,  in  the  same  way,  with  our  turbines  and 
our  flume,  compelled  the  tireless  waterfall  to 
take  our  labor,  while  we  work.  The  workmen  I 
am  speaking  to  know  what  progress  has  been  made 
in  the  last  generation  in  this  direction.  But  all 


432     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

of  you  may  not  know  that  in  the  manufacture 
of  cotton  cloth,  for  instance,  thirty  hands  will 
now  do  the  work  which  required  a  hundred  hands 
only  thirty  years  ago.  I  say,  do  the  work.  In 
my  strict  sense  of  the  word,  not  one  of  those 
hands  is  a  laborer.  He  is  a  skilled  workman ;  and 
just  as  the  cutler  of  to-day  does  not  drive  his  own 
stone,  the  spinner  of  to-day  does  not  twist  his  own 
thread,  nor  the  weaver  drive  his  own  shuttle.  The 
labor  is  done  for  him  by  the  waterfall  or  by  the 
piston. 

"And  what  has  become  of  the  seventy  men 
and  women  set  free  from  the  work  of  spinning 
the  thread  or  weaving  the  web?  Here  is  the 
most  interesting  result  of  all.  What  is  the  new 
variety  of  industry, — what  is  the  wide  range  of 
art  and  manufacture,  —  but  the  immediate  product 
of  the  hands  and  the  heads  of  these  men  and 
women  who  have  new  fields  of  adventure  to  try, 
who  profit  by  the  new  inventions,  and  find  new 
work,  of  grades  more  and  more  interesting,  open 
before  them?  You  have  the  marvels  of  electricity. 
You  have  callings  created  by  them.  You  have  all 
the  wonderful  fertility  of  fine  art.  Your  homes 
are  bright  with  pictures  and  books,  cheaper  than 
ever  and  better  than  ever.  Travelling  becomes  a 
luxury ;  and  it  is  the  luxury  of  the  poor,  where  it 
was  the  necessity  of  the  rich.  Gradually  but  cer 
tainly  the  day's  work  shortens;  yet  the  world's 
product  enlarges.  Prices  steadily  fall.  Comfort 
steadily  increases.  And  all  this  is  exactly  in  pro- 


Work  and  Labor  433 

portion  as,  by  an  intelligent   invention,  we  sub 
stitute  work  for  labor." 

At  this  point  a  double  black  line  was  drawn 
across  Spinner's  manuscript,  and  the  next  page 
was  left  blank.  It  was  clear  enough  that  a  pause 
was  made  here  in  delivery,  —  perhaps  what  the  old 
lecturers  called  an  "  intermission."  The  address 
then  went  on  in  a  somewhat  different  vein. 

"  I  hope  no  man  or  woman  hears  me  who 
thinks  the  distinction  I  have  drawn  is  a  mere 
matter  of  the  dictionary-makers  or  word-splitters. 
I  hate  them  and  their  deeds.  I  dare  not  try 
to  say  how  much  evil  they  have  done  to  this 
world,  and  especially  to  industry  —  honest  indus 
try —  and  to  work — honest  work.  The  curse  — 
may  I  say  it? — of  the  Son  of  God  is  upon  so 
many  of  them,  where,  in  that  terrible  description 
of  his,  in  the  shortest  words  of  our  language,  he 
speaks  of  those  who  '  say  and  do  not.'  I  would  be 
dumb  rather  than  come  here  to  entertain  you  with 
a  mere  discussion  of  words. 

"  No ;  I  have  dwelt  on  the  difference  between 
the  two  words  because  I  want  to  show  the  dif 
ference  between  two  things.  There  are  countries 
and  there  are  times  in  which  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  labor  and  very  little  work.  There  are  barbar 
ous  countries  and  barbarous  times.  There  are 
other  countries  and  other  times  where  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  work  and  very  little  labor.  Such, 
thank  God,  is  our  country  and  this  time ;  and  we 
call  it  a  civilized  country  and  a  civilized  age  simply 

28 


434      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

because  there  is  much  work  and  little  labor.  But, 
my  friends,  we  do  not  know  —  we  do  not  begin  to 
know  —  what  we  mean  by  that  great  word  '  civil 
ization.'  If  our  children  know,  —  and  I  hope  they 
will,  —  it  will  be  because  we  are  faithful  to  our  part 
in  substituting  work  for  labor.  We  must  do  our 
part  to  have  the  drudgery  done  by  beasts,  by  water, 
by  steam,  by  electricity,  and  by  any  new  power 
which  the  genius  of  man,  guided  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  can  tame.  To  make  more  places  for  work 
men,  and  to  lift  more  laboring  men  into  these 
places,  —  this  is  our  duty. 

"  We  respect  labor.  Yes ;  we  respect  anything 
that  is  honest.  But  all  the  encouragement  we  give 
to  labor  shall  be  the  encouragement  a  man  gives 
to  a  tired  boy  on  his  long  walk.  The  walk  shall 
soon  be  over,  and  the  rest  from  it  shall  be 
won. 

"  It  is  our  business,  first  of  all,  to  encourage 
the  laboring  man,  by  opening  to  him  every  pos 
sible  line  of  promotion,  that  he  may  become  a 
workman.  Help  him  to  go  to  the  evening  school. 
Help  him  with  his  books.  Encourage  his  children 
in  the  same  way.  Do  not  ask  him  nor  expect 
him  to  remain  a  drudge  or  a  laborer  long;  but 
show  him  that,  in  a  country  like  ours,  the  lines  of 
promotion  are  always  open.  These  few  years  of 
labor  are  like  the  voyage  of  the  sea-sick  pas 
senger,  every  day  of  which  brings  him  nearer  to 
the  promised  land. 

"If  you  will  tell  him  the  truth,  you  can  make 


Work  and  Labor  435 

him  see  this.  We  have  very  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  proportion  of  laborers  to  workmen  in  North 
ern  America.  The  statistics  of  Massachusetts  are 
precise.  They  show  us  that  of  the  working  force 
of  that  industrious  commonwealth  only  nine  per 
cent  are  '  unskilled  laborers.'  The  other  ninety- 
one  per  cent  are  workmen.  They  are  conquering 
matter,  not  by  the  matter  in  their  bones  and  blood, 
but  by  the  immortal  Spirit  which  comes  from  God. 
Only  one  eleventh  of  the  force  of  Massachusetts 
are  laboring  men  and  women.  Now,  suppose  Mas 
sachusetts  was  an  old-fashioned  Japan.  Suppose 
there  was  a  wall  of  fire  around  her,  and  no  one 
could  come  in.  Suppose  she  said  she  would  com 
pel  her  young  men,  as  they  started  in  life,  to  do 
this  heavy  work, — to  be  her  drudges  and  labor 
ers  ;  and  that,  when  each  had  done  it,  she  would 
promote  them  to  be  workmen,  —  fellow-workers 
with  God  Almighty !  They  would  only  have  to 
toil  in  that  drudgery  four  little  years  or  less.  They 
would  be  for  that  time  like  the  conscripts  in  a 
German  army.  In  their  young  life  they  would  so 
serve  the  commonwealth  that  as  men  and  women 
they  could  rise  to  higher  service  as  workmen  and 
workwomen,  —  yes,  as  the  directors  of  the  drudges. 
Any  man  would  say  that  he  would  buy  that  eman 
cipation  by  those  four  years  of  drudgery,  if  that 
was  the  only  opening  to  it. 

"  Now  these  figures  for  Massachusetts  are  un 
doubtedly  the  figures  for  all  the  industrial  States 
of  America.  You  have,  then,  a  right  to  say  to 


436      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

that  good  fellow  from  Italy  or  from  Hungary  who 
digs  a  ditch  for  you  to-day,  *  Look  aloft,  my 
friend ;  look  forward  cheerfully.  At  the  most  we 
only  need  you  a  few  years  in  this  toil.  And  our 
schools  are  open,  our  library  is  open,  our  shops  are 
open,  that  you  may  leave  this  toil  and  rise  higher.' 
If  the  man  turns  you  off, — if  he  had  rather 
drink  bad  beer  and  bad  whiskey  all  his  life,  and 
all  his  life  be  a  beast,  a  drudge,  and  a  toilsman,  — 
that  is  his  affair.  But  be  sure  you  do  your  part 
to  lift  him  higher.  Make  him  temperate.  Teach 
him  to  read.  Teach  him  to  write.  Give  him  a 
chance  to  draw.  Give  him  a  chance  to  use  his 
hands.  Perhaps  he  can  carve;  perhaps  he  can 
paint.  Show  him  that  he  has  a  mind.  Show 
him  this  by  showing  him  that  he  has  a  soul.  Let 
his  soul  begin  to  use  his  mind  and  his  body,  and 
you  have  made  him  free  indeed. 

"  I  spoke  bitterly  of  those  people  who  make  me 
sick.  They  are  the  people  who  talk  all  day,  when 
they  know  nothing,  and  have  nothing  to  tell  me. 
They  are  like  the  Philadelphia  printing-presses  in 
the  Revolution,  that  clattered  all  day  and  all  night, 
and  printed  nothing  but  sheets  of  Continental 
money,  of  which  every  word  was  a  visible  lie. 
When  a  man  like  that  looks  into  my  weaving-room, 
and  sees  an  intelligent  young  lady  there  overlook 
ing  four  looms  perhaps,  gently  releasing  a  broken 
thread,  quietly  soothing  a  squeaking  pivot,  —  when 
one  of  these  men  calls  her  afterward  a  person  who 
works  with  her  hands,  and  in  condescending  con- 


Work  and  Labor  437 

trast  speaks  of  himself  as  a  person  who  works  with 
his  brain,  I  want  to  knock  the  man  down.  Brain, 
indeed  !  Hand,  indeed  !  Her  work  is  intellectual 
work  far  more  subtle  than  his.  Let  them  be 
judged  by  their  fruits.  At  the  end  of  a  year  she 
shows  so  many  bales  of  cloth,  or,  if  you  please,  so 
many  men  '  clothed  in  their  right  mind/  because 
she  gave  her  intelligence  to  clothing  men.  And 
he  shows  —  a  ream  of  paper  covered  with  an 
infinite  ocean  of  nothing. 

"  But  I  do  not  stop  with  our  duty  to  educate  the 
laborer  into  a  workman.  Let  us  steadily,  in  all 
lines  of  our  duty,  remember  that  there  should  be 
no  fixed  and  permanent  class  of  laborers.  Let  us 
arrange  the  laws,  the  customs,  and  habits,  as  we 
arrange  the  education,  of  the  community,  so  that 
labor  may  be  regarded  as  simply  a  necessary  pre 
liminary  to  good  work;  as  we  inoculate  a  child, 
though  we  make  him  sick  for  a  week,  in  order  that 
from  one  disease  he  may  be  exempt  forever.  To 
do  this,  we  must  highly  disregard  much  that  we 
find  written  in  the  older  books,  when  the  laboring 
men  made  three  quarters  of  a  community,  while 
now  they  make  only  one  eleventh,  as  I  have  shown 
you ;  and  we  must  determine  so  to  improve  indus 
try  and  invention  that  in  twenty  years  that  propor 
tion  shall  be  reduced  still  farther,  and  there  shall 
be  only  five  drudges,  while  there  are  ninety-five 
men  and  women  who  have  stepped  forward  in 
man's  great  God-given  duty  of  subduing  the 
world.  Laws,  customs,  language,  education,  fash- 


438      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

ions,  —  all   must   contribute   to  this  advance  and 
reform. 

"  My  contribution  to  it  to-night,  if  I  have  in  the 
least  succeeded,  has  been  made  in  showing  you  the 
object  at  which  we  are  aiming.     And  we  are  to 
remember  that  mere  drudgery  —  I  had  almost  said, 
from  its  nature  —  degrades  the  drudge,  and  tends 
to  make  him  the  mere  beast  which  he  is  called. 
In  the  mere  infancy  of  civilization,  the  kings  of 
Europe  punished  men  by  making  of  them  galley- 
slaves.     The  severest  punishment  was  to  make  a 
man  completely  a  drudge.     All  day  long,   under 
the  lash  perhaps,  he  was  to  pull  at  that  heavy  oar. 
Nay,  to  disgrace  him  the  more,  he  was  even  made 
to  pull  when  his  toil  was  wholly  wasted,  —  when 
the  galley  was  anchored  at  the  pier.     The  tread 
mill,  which  I  believe  we  never  had  in  America,  but 
which  I  have  myself  seen  in  England,  was  in  prac 
tice  the  same  thing.    It  merely  took  the  dead  weight 
of  the  man.    He  walked  up  on  that  moving  stairway, 
—  always  stepping  up  and  never  ascending.     Why 
have  these  punishments  been  abandoned,  except  in 
extreme  cases?     Why  would  it  be  well  to  abandon 
them  forever?     Simply  because  they  ruined   the 
man.     You  treated  the  man  as  if  he  were  a  beast, 
and,  by  an  infinite  law  he  became  a  beast.     The 
quality  of  manhood  is  to  look  up,  and  to  look  for 
ward.     You   took    the   quality   away    when    you 
repressed  it,  —  when  you    failed  to  use  it.     And 
just  what  happened  to  those  poor  galley-slaves  and 
treadmill  men  is  what  is  likely  to  happen  to  any 


Work  and  Labor  439 

man  whom  I  compel  to  a  life  of  mere  brute  toil, 
unless  you  enlarge  him  by  that  noblest  word, 
'  Friend,  go  up  higher.' 

"  You  may  ask  any  temperance  man,  who  is  a 
real  workman  in  that  great  cause,  whether  drudg 
ery  is  not  bad  for  a  man's  temperance.  Ask  the 
Blue  Ribbon  men  where  danger  comes.  They  will 
tell  you  that  it  comes  when  a  man's  physical  frame 
is  exhausted  by  his  day's  toil,  and  when  he  has  no 
ambition  to  supply  a  higher  stimulus  than  that  of 
alcohol.  Tired  to  death,  with  every  muscle  ach 
ing,  with  no  chance  of  a  to-morrow  any  higher 
than  to-day,  or  that  next  year  will  be  brighter  than 
this  year,  the  poor  creature  goes  into  the  liquor 
shop  as  he  leaves  his  drudgery.  For  my  part,  I  do 
not  wonder.  I  can  hardly  say  I  blame  him.  I 
can  say  I  pity  him.  And  you  know  what  follows. 
He  forgets  his  fatigue ;  he  forgets  that  he  is  worn 
out.  There  has  been  one  cheerful  hour  after  a 
day  of  wretched  toil ;  and  so,  alas !  he  comes 
again  and  again,  and  at  last  you  hear  that  the  devil 
who  tempted  him  in  has  kicked  the  poor  brute  out, 
because  he  has  nothing  to  pay  to  his  tempter. 
You  began  by  calling  him  '  poor  man,'  and  then 
you  said  '  poor  creature,'  and  then  you  said  '  poor 
brute.'  That  is,  you  condemned  him  to  the  life  of 
a  brute,  and  to  a  brute's  life  of  appetite  it  reduced 
him. 

"  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  I  wanted  to  en 
courage  and  improve  a  gang  of  laboring  men,  if  I 
found  the  liquor-dealers  had  got  hold  of  them,  and 


44°     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

were  leading  them  you  know  where,  I  would  first 
of  all  try  to  make  them  see  that  in  the  habit  of 
drink  they  are  selling  themselves  —  yes,  and  the 
children  they  love  better  than  themselves  —  to 
perpetual  slavery.  I  should  show  them  that  in  a 
country  like  this,  with  open  lines  of  promotion,  no 
man  is  kept  digging  in  the  mud  unless  he  keeps 
himself  there.  I  should  show  them  that  in  that 
slavery  they  are  open  to  the  competition  of  the 
heaviest  brute  and  the  strongest,  who  is  too  dull  to 
do  better,  —  by  which  I  mean,  to  him,  easier.  I 
should  show  them  that  every  starving  nation  in 
Europe,  in  Asia,  or  in  Africa,  sent  over  ship-loads 
of  competitors  to  lower  their  wages  for  them.  I 
should  show  them  that  while  they  were  drinking- 
men  they  would  never  rise  a  hand's  breadth  above 
this  position  of  drudgery ;  and  the  reason  I  would 
urge  to  compel  them  to  take  the  pledge  and  to 
keep  it  would  be  that  thus  they  began  their  up 
ward  step,  with  some  purpose  and  some  hope.  I 
should  show  them  what  we  Christians  mean  when 
we  speak  of  '  The  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of 
God.' 

"  I  am  no  preacher,  friends,  as  you  know.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  bring  you  a  sermon.  But  I  dare 
not  stop  till  I  have  said  that  you  will  find  every 
word  I  have  said  better  said  in  the  four  Gospels, 
and  in  the  letters  of  that  master-workman,  as  I 
have  heard  Mr.  Sherlock  call  him,  — *  that  master- 
workman  in  the  craft  of  tent-making,  Paul  of  Tar 
sus.  That  men  may  come  into  the  glorious  liberty 


Work  and  Labor  441 

of  the  sons  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  men  begs  them 
to  come  up  higher.  That  they  may  do  so,  Saint 
Paul  begs  them  to  forget  the  things  that  are  behind, 
and  to  reach  forth  to  the  things  that  are  before. 
To  do  this  they  need,  first  of  all,  for  the  glorious 
renewal  of  the  new  birth,  to  master  the  body,  to 
master  the  mind,  by  the  sway  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
and  this  means  that  they  will,  step  by  step  and  day 
by  day,  mount  from  that  drudgery  in  which  brute 
force  toils  with  things,  up  into  that  higher  life  in 
which  the  children  of  God  subdue  the  world." 

NOTE.  —  In  reprinting  this  paper  in  1900,  I  like  to  say  that 
Mr.  George  Morison,  our  "  Pontifex  Maximus,"  tells  me  that  in  the 
year  1999,  the  unconscious  powers  of  nature  will  be  so  completely 
under  the  control  of  man,  the  son  of  God,  —  that  they  will  be  so 
subdivided,  —  that  no  man  or  woman  will  do  any  muscular  or  phys 
ical  drudgery,  unless  they  want  to.  It  will  be  possible  to  sweep 
a  floor,  or  to  hoe  a  garden,  by  the  "  work  "  which  controls  these 
unconscious  powers. 

The  New  Testament  texts  in  the  Received  Version  and  the 
Revised  Version  are  :  — 

"  For  we  are  labourers  together  with  God :  ye  are  God's  hus 
bandry,  ye  are  God's  building." —  I  Cor.  iii.  9. 

Revised  Version.  —  "  For  we  are  God's  fellow-workers :  ye  are 
God's  husbandry,  God's  building." 


CHAPTER   XV 

COMMUNISM 

THEY  had  an  old  Scotchman  in  the  counting- 
room  at  Hampton,  named  Dugdale.  He 
said  he  knew  nothing  about  their  business,  for 
that  he  was  a  cotton-bug.  But,  in  truth,  he  had  a 
Scotchman's  habit  of  turning  his  hand  to  many 
things ;  he  had  seen  many  more  countries  than 
Ulysses  ever  saw,  and  many  more  men ;  and,  hav 
ing  kept  his  eyes  open,  he  had  learned  something 
from  every  man  and  every  country. 

He  was  so  old  now  that  he  did  not  like  work  at 
the  loom,  and  had  even  given  up  the  superintendence 
of  one  of  the  weaving-rooms,  where  he  had  long 
been  a  master.  And  now  he  was  the  chief  book 
keeper  of  the  concern. 

I  was  interested  to  find  that  he  knew  personally 
Robert  Owen,  whose  experiments  at  New  Lanark, 
in  social  order,  attracted  so  much  attention  in  their 
time,  and  were  supposed  by  so  many  intelligent 
people  to  carry  with  them  the  secret  of  the  indus 
tries  of  the  future,  — to  exhibit,  indeed,  the  "  King 
dom  of  Heaven  "  in  the  form  which  it  was  to  take 
on  earth. 


Communism  443 

The  Emperor  Alexander  of  Russia  visited  New 
Lanark;  and  Robert  Owen  went  to  Elba  to  per 
suade  the  exiled  Napoleon  that  here  was  the  se 
cret  of  the  future. 

Dugdale  had  never  worked  in  his  mills.  He 
was  not  old  enough.  But  as  a  baby  he  had  been 
attended  to  in  the  "  Eccaleobion,"  which  Robert 
Owen  provided  for  the  sustenance  of  all  babies 
after  they  were  well  hatched.  And  in  later  life  he 
had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  New  Lanark  to  see  the 
wrecks  of  that  incipient  "  City  of  God,"  which  had 
not  life  enough  to  live.  Very  sad  it  was,  he  said, 
to  find  astronomical  drawings  of  real  value,  which 
had  been  prepared  for  popular  lectures,  lying 
under  the  foot  of  man,  half-buried  by  the  plaster 
which  had  fallen  from  the  ceiling  of  the  lecture- 
room. 

Dugdale  told  me  this  story  one  evening,  and  it 
was  a  very  good  text  for  the  consideration  of  dear 
old  Owen's  plans,  from  which  we  branched  off — 
or  some  of  the  men  present  did  —  into  talk  of 
Fourier  and  his  Phalanstery,  of  St.  Simon,  and  of 
some  of  the  later  forms  of  what  is  called  Socialism, 
and  of  what  is  called  Communism. 

Dugdale  said  —  and  I  think  —  that  the  super 
ficial  writers,  particularly  the  writers  for  the  press, 
in  their  ignorance  of  the  subjects  which  they  pre 
tend  to  consider,  had  clouded  all  discussions  by 
mixing  up  Communism  with  a  u,  as  he  said,  with 
Communism  with  an  o.  The  old  word  "  Commun 
ism,"  with  its  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  meant 


444     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

one  thing.  It  meant  property  in  common,  as  the 
Shakers  of  America  hold  it  to-day,  or  as  the 
Iroquois  Indians  of  New  York  held  it.  What  he 
called  Communism  with  a  uy  is  the  notion  of  the 
violent  French  radicals,  who  want  to  exaggerate 
local  government,  the  government  of  the  Com 
mune,  or,  as  we  should  say,  of  the  township.  It  is 
a  miserable  misfortune  for  all  sensible  discussion 
that  the  two  words  happen  to  be  spelled  with  the 
same  letters.  For  they  mean  two  wholly  different 
things.  Yet  you  can  hardly  find  a  recent  pamphlet 
on  the  subject  which  is  not  obscured  by  a  careless 
ness  about  two  things  which  have  hardly  any 
thing  to  do  with  each  other. 

Dugdale  had  himself,  in  earlier  life,  tried  some 
of  the  socialistic  and  communistic  experiments. 
He  had  even  spent  part  of  one  winter  with  the 
Shakers.  He  had  read  some  of  the  best-digested 
French  plans.  I  found  he  knew  about  the  Fami- 
listere  at  Guise.  And,  indeed,  he  went  into  the 
philosophy  of  the  system  of  the  Iroquois  as  I  had 
never  heard  any  American  do,  even  if  he  were  a 
citizen  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

In  point  of  fact,  he  said,  —  and  I  have  satisfied 
myself  that  the  remark  is  true,  —  property  in  com 
mon,  if  one  may  use  words  so  contradictory,  was 
the  beginning  of  property  in  more  savage  times, 
out  of  which  we  have  gradually  emerged,  and  we 
are  to  look  back  into  semi-barbarism  for  an  illus 
tration  of  it,  instead  of  looking  forward  into  a 
higher  civilization.  If  Mr.  Henry  George  really 


Communism  445 

wants  to  see  what  happens,  when  all  land  is  owned 
by  the  State,  let  him  go  to  the  Cherokee  Reservation, 
in  the  Indian  Territory,  where  land  is  held  so  now. 
He  can  see  how  he  likes  that.  It  is  by  gradually 
working  upward  and  outward  from  this  common 
holding  of  which  every  country  in  the  world  has 
illustrations  in  its  earlier  history,  that  we  have 
come  out  on  the  system  of  to-day.  In  to-day's 
system  a  great  deal  of  wealth  is  still  held  in  com 
mon.  It  is  "  Res  Publica,"  the  Common  Wealth. 
But  for  certain  things,  men  and  women  have  pre 
ferred  to  have  their  own  "  proper  "-ty. 

Dugdale  said  that  when  Robert  Owen  was  eighty 
years  old,  as  eager  as  ever  in  his  hopes  for  the 
"  Family  Unions,"  as  he  called  his  villages,  he  him 
self  asked  the  old  man  what  people  would  do  when 
the  world  was  all  mathematically  adjusted.  Dug- 
dale  expressed  the  fear  that  it  would  be  a  very 
stupid  world. 

"  Do !  "  cried  the  old  reformer,  with  a  blaze  of 
light  as  from  heaven  on  his  face.  "Do?  Why, 
they  will  travel !  Think  of  the  joy  of  travelling, 
without  expense,  without  fatigue,  and  without 
baggage" 

And  he  explained  that  the  traveller  would  tele 
graph  in  advance  that  he  was  coming,  and  would 
find  clean  clothing  laid  out  for  him  in  his  bed 
room,  fitted  to  his  size,  —  five  feet  seven,  or  six 
feet  three,  as  the  case  might  be. 

Dugdale  had  intimated,  in  reply,  that  most  men 
had  a  fancy  for  wearing  their  own  shirts. 


446     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

Really,  in  this  anecdote,  the  whole  principle  was 
involved.  On  the  whole,  men  preferred  to  own 
their  own  shirts,  their  own  axes,  penknives,  pens, 
paper,  and  so  their  own  houses,  oxen,  horses  and 
barns.  John  likes  to  drive  a  fiery  trotter,  who  will 
go  on  the  road  at  2.40.  William  had  rather  drive 
a  quiet  family  beast,  who  will  not  annoy  him  as 
they  go  on  the  road,  but  will  bring  him  out  safely 
six  miles  at  the  end  of  an  hour.  Because,  on  the 
whole,  mankind  prefers  private  property  in  certain 
things,  men  have  private  property  in  certain  things. 

But  there  is  other  property,  which  is  Common 
Wealth,  and  the  government  of  the  Common 
Wealth  holds  it  and  administers  it.  Undoubtedly 
it  is  a  subject  for  discussion  and  experiment  how 
much  of  such  property  there  shall  be.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  wise  for  one  community  to  hold  certain 
wealth  in  common,  while  another  community  finds 
it  best  to  hold  it  in  severalty.  The  weakness  of 
Mr.  Spencer's  discussion  of  this  subject,  as  of  many 
other  discussions  from  different  English  radicals, 
comes  on  their  insisting  on  classing  all  property 
together,  and  protesting  against  any  claims  of 
Government.  This  comes  from  the  dread  which 
their  fathers  were  bred  in,  by  the  maladminis 
tration  of  a  landed  aristocracy. 

But,  on  the  whole,  it  has  proved  advisable  that 
the  nation  shall  own  the  lighthouses.  Next  to 
these,  it  has  proved  advisable  that  it  shall  own  the 
high-roads,  that  they  shall  not  be  owned  by  private 
companies.  In  America  we  are  satisfied  that  the 


Communism  447 

State  should  own  the  schoolhouses.  Whether  it 
shall  own  the  higher  schools,  —  the  colleges  and 
universities,  —  has  not  been  decided  in  an  experi 
ence.  Some  States,  as  Michigan  and  Wisconsin, 
own  the  buildings  and  funds  of  their  universities, 
and  administer  them.  In  some  States,  as  in  Mas 
sachusetts  and  Connecticut,  they  are  the  property 
of  distinct  corporations.  Most  American  cities 
think  it  best  to  own  their  own  water-works.  The 
reservoirs,  the  pipes,  and  all  the  apparatus,  are 
part  of  the  wealth  in  common  belonging  to  the 
Commonwealth.  There  seems  to  be  no  principle 
which  should  prevent  the  city  government  from 
owning  the  gas-works  and  gas-pipes,  in  the  same 
way.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  present  habit  is  to 
leave  this  property  to  special  corporations. 

In  the  same  way,  it  would  be  hard  to  define  any 
principle  which  should  prevent  a  State  from  own 
ing  a  railway,  —  as,  indeed,  many  of  the  European 
states  do,  —  as  most  states  own  the  ordinary  road 
way,  on  which  foot-men,  horses,  cattle,  and  ordinary 
carriages  travel.  Whoever  will  take  the  pains,  in 
his  own  neighborhood,  to  calculate  how  much 
money  has  been  spent  by  the  public  upon  roads, 
courthouses,  schoolhouses,  and  other  public  build 
ings,  water-works,  street-lamps,  and  other  similar 
conveniences,  will  find  very  soon,  that  nearly  or 
quite  half  the  property  in  that  neighborhood  is 
now  the  Common  Wealth.  There  has  been  no 
prejudice  against  that  sort  of  wealth,  where  it  is 
the  most  convenient  form  of  property.  But  there 


448      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

is  other  property  which,  on  the  whole,  in  the 
experience  of  mankind,  it  has  proved  best  to 
reserve  for  separate  or  individual  holding.  This 
is  what  we  commonly  call  personal  property. 
Between  the  two  is  real  estate,  which  is  held  by 
the  individual  as  personal  property  but,  at  the 
same  time,  is  held  under  the  eminent  domain  of 
society,  which  takes  it  when  it  chooses  for  a 
railway,  a  canal,  a  reservoir,  a  schoolhouse,  a 
public  library,  or  any  other  purpose  where,  on  the 
whole,  its  use  is  needed  for  or  by  the  Common 
wealth. 

Of  course  it  is  true  that,  as  civilization  goes 
forward,  new  experiments  may  be  tried,  and  new 
adjustments  may  be  found  necessary.  If  a  town 
ship  happened  to  hold  a  great  water-power,  it 
might  find  it  desirable  to  establish  an  electric 
plant,  for  light,  as  a  part  of  the  wealth  in  common. 
Having  established  it  for  the  highways,  it  would 
be  absurd  not  to  permit  its  use  in  separate  homes, 
if  there  were  light  enough  to  be  used  so. 

In  just  the  same  way  most  of  our  States  have 
found  it  convenient  to  institute  State  asylums  for 
insanity,  for  the  blind,  the  deaf,  and  the  dumb. 
Large  cities  find  it  convenient  to  establish  hospi 
tals  for  the  sick,  as  a  part  of  their  wealth  in  com 
mon.  There  is  no  principle  which  prevents  a  small 
village  from  doing  the  same  thing.  But  in  a  small 
village  the  necessity  does  not  press  in  the  same 
way,  and  certain  inconveniences  prevent  such  an 
arrangement.  In  either  case,  however,  the  insti- 


Communism  449 

tution  is  founded  —  or  it  is  not  founded  —  as  the 
particular  exigency  may  demand. 

Now  the  difficulty  in  all  the  grand  paper  theories, 
for  arranging  the  common  wealth,  has  been  that 
infallibly  there  has  been  a  vein  of  patronage  or 
condescension  visible  all  along  in  the  arrangements 
of  the  projector.  Robert  Owen  really  thought 
that  he  knew  how  to  take  care  of  little  babies 
better  than  their  mothers  did.  So  he  took  the 
babies  into  a  common  nursery,  while  the  mothers 
worked  at  spinning-jennies  or  looms.  He  went  so 
far  as  to  indicate  in  advance  the  cut  of  the  dress 
which  children  were  to  wear  at  play.  St.  Simon, 
Fourier,  and  the  whole  tribe  take  just  the  same 
strain.  They  talk  of  "  laborers,"  or  the  "  prole 
tariat,"  or  the  "  working  class,"  just  as  you 
might  talk  of  the  mackerel  you  meant  to  catch,  or 
of  the  pounds  of  steam  which  were  to  drive  your 
piston.  What  follows?  Why,  as  soon  as  Dale 
Owen  carries  a  colony  to  New  Harmony,  it  goes 
to  pieces  on  a  rebellion  about  this  matter  of  dress. 
Garfield  said  "  that  all  the  people  are  much  wiser 
than  any  one  of  the  people."  The  people  know 
what  they  want  much  better  than  any  student  of 
their  wants  knows.  They  know  where  the  shoe 
pinches,  and  what  hinge  needs  oil. 

And  the  danger  and  the  failure  of  what  are  called 
socialistic  schemes,  —  or  communistic  schemes, 
social  unions,  phalansteries,  or  whatever  they  are 
called,  —  spring  from  their  being  imposed  from 
above  below,  in  this  infatuation  of  superiority.  It 

29 


45°     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

all  belongs  to  the  middle  ages,^and  to  feudalism, 
where  a  baron  at  once  protected  and  directed  his 
inferiors. 

But  begin  at  the  other  end,  —  begin  on  the 
Christian  principle,  where  he  who  is  greatest 
among  you  is  your  servant,  and  is  only  great 
because  he  serves,  —  and  you  will  not  have  any 
danger,  and  your  failure  will  be  easily  remedied. 
Let  the  people  associate  where  they  want  to  and 
need,  and  they  will  work  out  their  own  successes. 
From  their  experiments  have  come  such  triumphs 
as  mutual  insurance,  as  the  limited  liability  laws,  as 
co-operative  trade,  co-operative  banking,  co-oper 
ative  fishing,  co-operative  housekeeping.  If  they 
make  a  mistake,  why,  they  will  stop  soon  enough. 
They  have  no  passion  for  burning  their  fingers. 
And  where  they  succeed,  they  will  push  forward  in 
the  same  line,  and  they  will  find  plenty  of  imitators. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  say  this  at  any 
length.  Briefly,  such  success  is  the  Christian  suc 
cess,  freely  promised  to  those  who  seek  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  mean  to  live  righteously. 
He  who  is  greatest  among  them  is  their  servant. 
And,  in  the  common  service,  the  common  cause 
succeeds. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CONCLUSION 

IT  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  throw  this 
account  of  Hampton  into  a  more  systematic 
form  than  has  been  attempted.  But  it  is  desirable 
that  such  accounts  should  be  read,  as  well  as  that 
they  should  be  written.  And  I  have  supposed 
that  by  describing  the  different  features  of  the 
enterprise,  with  some  reference  to  the  different 
points  of  view  of  the  persons  most  engaged  in 
them,  it  would  be  easier  to  enlist  readers. 

It  is  not,  however,  perhaps,  going  too  much  into 
the  philosophy  of  social  order,  if,  in  this  closing 
chapter,  the  writer  tries  to  state  a  few  of  the 
principles  on  which  the  success  of  such  an  enter 
prise  as  that  at  Hampton  is  based.  First  of  all,  it 
is  to  be  remembered  that  America  is,  and  always 
was,  and  always  will  be,  a  democratic  country,  —  a 
country  of  the  people,  governed  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,  in  the  people's  way.  It  really  made  no 
difference  whether  the  allegiance  of  this  country 
were  given  to  an  English  king  or  to  an  American 
constitution.  It  had  been  a  democratic  country 
from  the  very  beginning,  and  it  would  not  be  diffi- 


452     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

cult  to  show  that  it  could  not  have  been  anything 
else.  By  this  is  meant,  that  the  People,  having 
of  necessity  to  take  a  good  deal  of  the  care  and 
arrangement  of  their  own  lives,  took  that  care  so 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  it  was  always  impossible 
to  push  or  pull  them  by  any  wires,  as  if  they  were 
puppets,  to  be  directed  by  a  superior  class.  The 
People  had  made  their  own  roads,  had  laid  out 
their  own  towns,  had  established  their  own  courts, 
had  created  their  own  local  governments;  and  a 
People  which  had  done  this  was  entirely  outside  of 
any  possible  aristocratic  or  despotic  governments. 
This  is  simply  the  explanation  of  the  constitutions 
of  the  American  towns  and  cities. 

A  man  has  only  to  see  how  the  roads  are 
mended  in  a  country  community  in  America  to 
understand  what  is  meant  by  the  popular  direction 
in  public  affairs.  It  is  no  engineer,  sent  down 
from  a  central  capital,  who  brings  with  him  experts, 
trained  to  road-building,  and  what  the  French 
would  call  "  proletaries  "  to  execute  their  orders. 
It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  the  farms 
who  are  themselves  to  ride  over  the  roads,  who 
come,  at  a  day  almost  self-appointed,  with  their 
oxen,  their  shovels,  their  picks,  and  their  hoes,  and 
execute  together  certain  work  which  the  experience 
of  the  neighborhood  shows  necessary.  There  is 
probably  some  person  in  nominal  authority,  who  is 
called  a  "  supervisor  of  the  roads,"  but  this  man 
acts,  and  knows  he  acts,  under  the  appointment  of 
the  very  people  whose  work  he  is  supposed  to  di- 


Conclusion  453 

rect,  and  the  correction  of  any  faults  of  the  roads 
might  fairly  be  said  to  be  due  to  a  popular  rising 
in  the  neighborhood  for  that  purpose. 

Upon  people  so  trained  and  habituated  to  using 
their  own  personal  judgment  in  the  management  of 
their  own  affairs,  there  was  super-imposed,  by  the 
changes  of  life  and  business,  what  we  call  the  fac 
tory  system.  There  has  never  been  any  trouble  in 
the  factory  system  in  America,  when  the  conditions 
were  such  that  the  instincts  of  the  national  popular 
life  could  be  maintained.  That  is  to  say,  if  the 
people  themselves  who  were  to  do  the  work,  felt 
that  they  had  some  discretion  in  the  matter,  and 
could  bring  some  of  their  own  intelligence  to  bear 
on  the  matter,  they  have  never  had  any  difficulty 
in  carrying  forward  the  manufacturing  process  on 
a  large  scale,  with  great  precision  and  with  impor 
tant  results.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  any  person 
who  is  accustomed  to  the  direction  of  "  laborers," 
laboring  men,  or  "  operatives,"  in  the  countries  of 
Europe,  finds,  from  the  very  beginning,  that  this 
direction  from  above  working  below,  autocratic  in 
its  character,  and  savoring  rather  of  Celtic  than  of 
Teutonic  life,  is  met  with  obstacles  at  every  step. 

Whenever  we  hear  of  a  difficulty  in  a  mill,  or 
a  misunderstanding  between  employers  and  em 
ployed,  it  may  be  said,  almost  with  certainty,  that 
the  parties  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  have  devi 
ated  perhaps  of  necessity,  from  the  original  idea, 
which  is,  at  bottom,  the  idea  of  mutual  help  or 
co-operation. 


454     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

It  has  been  intimated  in  these  pages  more  than 
once  that  wherever  the  American  idea  is  permitted 
to  assert  itself  the  results  are  simple  and  satisfac 
tory,  as  in  the  well-known  instance  of  the  Nantucket 
whale-fishery,  and  the  fisheries  for  mackerel  and 
cod  carried  on  from  both  the  large  capes  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay.  It  would  even  be  fair  to  take  the 
great  military  achievements  of  the  volunteer  armies 
of  the  United  States  as  an  illustration  of  what  is 
gained  when  the  national  principle  is  permitted  to 
assert  itself.  If,  after  one  of  the  great  conscriptions 
of  Europe,  it  were  proposed  that  the  recruits  should 
hold  an  election  to  choose  their  captains  and  lieu 
tenants,  it  may  almost  be  said  that  every  command 
ing  officer  now  on  the  continent  of  Europe  would 
commit  hari-kari,  or  seek  a  happy  release  in  the 
face  of  a  proposal  which  he  would  consider  as,  in 
itself,  so  fatal  to  all  energy  and  authority.  But 
when  the  United  States  had  occasion  to  call,  not 
for  recruits,  but  for  volunteers,  and  to  bring  those 
volunteers  into  the  field,  the  States  which  were  in 
the  habit  of  intrusting  to  their  soldiers  the  election 
of  their  own  lieutenants  and  captains  found  no 
occasion  to  change  their  habit;  and  the  discipline 
of  that  army  was  maintained  with  precisely  the 
same  precision  that  belongs  to  what  we  call  the 
regular  army  of  the  United  States,  in  which  no 
such  privilege  was  ever  sought  for  or  expected. 
That  is  to  say,  the  people  of  the  United  States 
understand  perfectly  well  that  there  must  be  order, 
there  must  be  command,  there  must  be  authority. 


Conclusion  455 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  from  the  very  nature  of  their  being,  from  the 
circumstances  which  called  them  into  existence, 
understand  that  they  are  the  real  fountain  of 
authority,  order,  and  command,  and  they  like  to 
be  consulted  before  authority  is  asserted. 

All  this,  it  may  be  said,  is  merely  theoretical. 
Possibly  it  is  so ;  but  the  theory  involved  is  based 
upon  national  habits  which  it  is  impossible  to  pass 
by  without  consideration.  Now,  the  problem  be 
fore  men  who  would  organize  industry  on  a  large 
scale,  for  any  specific  purpose,  involves,  first  of  all, 
the  question  how  the  organization  to  be  made  shall 
move  easily  and  without  friction.  How  shall  you 
enlist  the  good-will  of  those  who  must  work  to 
gether  in  this  system?  This  is  really  the  first 
question.  The  first  question  is  not  how  shall  you 
secure  the  largest  market,  or  how  shall  you  make 
the  most  money.  If  the  institution  is  to  be  a  per 
manent  institution,  the  question  is,  How  are  you  to 
secure  the  good-will  of  all  hands  engaged  ? 

It  may  be  granted  that  the  visible  result  does  not 
very  much  differ,  though  it  has  been  produced  in 
half  a  dozen  different  ways.  A  company,  for 
instance,  whose  troops  or  whose  officers  have  been 
commissioned  by  a  higher  authority,  would  not 
differ  in  the  aspect  of  a  parade  from  a  company  of 
volunteer  troops  whose  officers  have  been,  nomi 
nally  at  least,  chosen  by  the  privates.  But  if,  in 
one  of  these  two  cases,  there  were  harmony  and 
good  feeling  and  alacrity  among  the  men,  and  in 


456      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

the  other  case  you  found  nothing  better,  perhaps, 
than  indifference,  or  at  least  willingness  to  obey, 
there  would  be  a  difference  in  the  quality  of  the 
thing  done,  which  would  give  the  preference  to 
one  system  or  the  other. 

It  is  certainly  true  that  in  industries  not  requir 
ing  the  co-operation  of  very  large  numbers  of 
persons,  it  is  easy  to  obtain  that  sympathy  and 
good-will  of  all  hands  which  is  desired,  without 
any  very  formal  effort  for  the  purpose.  Most 
agricultural  industries  can  be  carried  on  with  that 
good-natured  fellow-feeling  which  has  been  de 
scribed  as  belonging  to  the  race,  —  the  willingness, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  lend  a  hand,  with  the  expecta 
tion,  on  the  other  hand,  of  respect  and  confidence. 
The  book  in  the  reader's  hand  is  an  effort  to  show 
that  the  same  sympathy,  mutual  regard,  and  mutual 
help  may  be  obtained  in  the  largest  processes  of 
manufacturing,  as  it  is  attained  on  board  of  a  fish 
ing-smack  or  a  whaling-ship,  or  in  the  work  of  a 
large  farm. 

The  principle  of  co-operation  is  so  essential  to 
all  Christian  civilization,  and  has  asserted  itself 
with  such  signal  success  in  many  of  the  walks  of 
industry,  that  the  word  is  now  used,  particularly 
by  careless  people,  as  if  it  were  a  talisman.  The 
novelist,  who  has  used  all  the  pages  of  this  book 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  how  terrible  is  the 
conflict  between  the  employers  and  the  employed, 
waves  his  wand  at  the  end  with  the  word  "  co 
operation,"  and  all  bad  dragons  are  expected  to 


Conclusion  457 

sink  into  the  abyss,  and  good  angels  to  appear 
in  their  places.  But  it  is  perfectly  well  known  that 
the  experiments  of  co-operative  industry  on  a  large 
scale  have  not  succeeded  so  far  as  to  induce  their 
repetition  on  a  larger  scale.  Until  this  measure  of 
success  has  been  attained,  it  is  necessary  to  study 
the  experiments  which  have  been  made,  to  see  in 
what  is  the  point  of  failure. 

As  the  reader  knows,  the  writer  believes  that 
the  failure  is  due  to  the  neglect  of  skilful  Man 
agement.  In  most  co-operative  enterprises  it  is 
taken  for  granted  that  if  you  have  a  great  body  of 
privates  any  fool  can  command  them.  Such  is  apt 
to  be  the  feeling  of  insurgents  when  they  rise  to  a 
great  but  new  duty.  No  fallacy  is  more  danger 
ous,  and  no  statement  is  more  false.  The  success 
of  a  business  enterprise  depends  entirely  upon  the 
skill  with  which  it  is  Managed,  and  upon  the  faith 
fulness  and  constancy  and  courage  of  its  managers. 
Unless  the  necessity  for  such  gifts  is  recognized  at 
the  very  outset,  unless  they  are  rated  where  they 
belong,  as  among  the  rare  gifts  of  men,  without 
which  success  is  impossible,  the  enterprise  fails. 
It  fails  just  as  certainly  as  it  would  fail  if  it  had  no 
capital,  or  as  it  would  fail  if  the  work-people  all 
deserted  it.  To  hold  in  proper  respect  those  who 
mediate  between  the  capitalist  and  the  workmen, 
to  give  to  them  authority,  absolute  in  its  place  and 
sufficient  for  every  purpose,  —  this  is  the  first 
necessity  in  such  enterprises.  But  it  is  a  necessity 
which  has  constantly  been  neglected  —  one  might 


45 8      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

say,  has  been  almost  always  neglected  —  in  the 
plans  for  co-operative  industry.  There  is  a  general 
impression  that  the  managers  must  be  kept  under : 
must  be  kept  in  a  subordinate  position.  It  is 
thought  that  they  have  gained  too  much  in  the 
past,  and  that,  for  the  future,  they  must  be  paying 
back  the  debt  which  has  been  contracted  by  their 
class.  And  so  the  enterprise,  involving  vigorous 
and  loyal  effort  on  the  part  of  the  workingmen, 
fails,  as  the  army  would  fail  which  was  not  led  by 
a  skilful  and  experienced  general. 

The  distinctive  feature,  then,  in  the  Hampton 
enterprise,  as  an  enterprise  of  co-operation,  is  that 
the  Management  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  three 
important  factors  in  the  business.  We  consider  it 
important  that  the  elements  of  success  should  be 
thus  classified.  The  general  effort  in  the  past  has 
been  to  give  to  Capital  the  place  of  Management, 
and  to  place  the  workman  in  subordination  to  the 
union  thus  formed.  The  dreams  of  the  future 
most  prevalent  have  generally  given  to  the  work 
men  the  Management,  and  made  Capital  subordi 
nate  to  the  union  thus  formed.  The  argument  of 
this  book  is  directed  to  show  that  Capital  has  its 
place,  that  Management  has  its  place,  and  that 
Work  has  its  place.  We  believe  it  will  be  con 
venient  to  divide  about  equally  the  profits  of 
any  enterprise  between  those  who  represent  these 
three  necessary  departments  of  every  enterprise. 
We  believe  that  it  is  as  dangerous  to  combine  the 
one  of  these  departments  with  the  other  as  it  is  in 


Conclusion  459 

civil  government  to  combine  the  legislative  function 
with  the  judicial  function,  or  the  judicial  function 
with  that  of  the  executive.  We  believe  that  the 
general  good  attained  will  be  in  proportion  as  the 
three  functions  are  kept  visibly  distinct  before  all 
men's  eyes. 

It  may  very  well  happen  that  the  workingman 
who  is  succeeding  in  life  does  not  choose  to  con 
tinue  the  investment  of  his  property  in  the  savings- 
bank,  but  buys  into  the  stock  of  the  company 
which  employs  him.  So  true  is  it  that "  corporation 
is  co-operation."  But  no  such  disposition  of  a 
man's  property  is  necessary  in  the  Hampton 
system,  as  it  has  been  described  in  these  pages ; 
and  it  has  been  more  convenient,  for  tracing  the 
principle  involved,  to  keep  the  representatives  of 
Capital,  Management,  and  Industry  separate  from 
each  other.  The  author  has  given  to  this  book  as 
a  second  title,  "  Christianity  applied  to  Manu 
facture."  By  this  he  means  to  intimate  that  the 
plans  of  the  future  for  large  manufacturing  will  be 
akin  to  the  American  plan  for  government.  They 
will  involve,  as  an  essential  element,  the  ability  of 
the  people  to  direct  their  own  amusements,  their 
own  education,  their  own  charities,  —  in  a  word, 
their  own  social  life.  As  a  part  of  this  direction, 
they  will  have  their  own  personal  interest,  as  they 
now  do,  indeed,  in  the  success  of  the  industries 
which  employ  them  from  day  to  day.  It  was  very 
natural  that  a  few  men  of  property  in  large  towns 
should  conceive  the  idea  of  insuring  the  ships,  the 


460      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

houses,  or  the  lives  of  their  persons.  But,  in  the 
regular  growth  of  an  American  system,  this  over 
sight  of  insurance  passes  from  the  hands  of  the  few 
into  the  hands  of  the  many,  and,  in  the  long  run, 
under  the  system  of  mutual  insurance,  the  same 
person  is  the  insurer  and  the  insured.  It  is  by  a 
movement  precisely  parallel,  as  the  author  con 
ceives,  that  the  manufacturing  of  America  has 
developed  on  democratic  lines.  Exactly  as  insur 
ance  began  when  a  few  rich  men  met  in  a  counting- 
house  and  planned  an  insurance  company,  the 
large  manufactures  began  when  a  few  rich  men  met 
and  planned  a  cotton  factory  or  a  woollen  mill. 
But,  by  a  growth  exactly  analogous  to  the  growth 
of  mutual  insurance,  it  will  probably  prove  that  the 
persons  who  have  in  hand  the  raw  materials  and 
work  them  up  will  be  counted  in,  not  simply  as 
passive,  but  among  the  interested  allies  in  the 
manufacture  to  which  they  lend  themselves.  There 
will  result  a  sympathy  and  common  force  which  is 
gained  when  a  body  of  people  say,  "  We  are  going 
to  do  this,"  or  "We  are  going  to  do  that,"  and 
which  cannot  exist  when  they  say,  "  He  proposes 
this,"  or  "  He  proposes  that."  It  will  be  for  the 
next  generation  to  indicate  the  steps  by  which  this 
enlargement  of  human  power  will  be  attained.  Of 
those  steps  the  watchword  is  "  Together." 

One  has  not  far  to  go  in  the  history  of  America 
to  find  the  illustrations  of  the  principle  involved  in 
every  stage  of  our  social  history.  It  would  be  fair 
to  say  that,  from  Maine  to  Florida,  from  the  Atlan- 


Conclusion  461 

tic  to  the  Pacific,  there  is  not  a  community,  large 
or  small,  which  has  been  established,  in  its  present 
condition,  at  the  fiat  of  a  superior  power.  The 
principle  of  successful  republican  administration 
has  been,  on  the  other  hand,  the  movement  of  the 
people,  and  the  participation  of  the  people.  Louis 
XIV.  could  give  the  orders  for  the  foundation  of 
the  city  of  Orleans.  But,  though  it  held  the  com 
mand  of  the  commerce  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
the  little  port,  created  to  order,  was  an  insignificant 
hamlet,  until,  in  a  new  dynasty,  the  People  who 
wanted  to  use  the  advantages  of  that  position 
swept  in  upon  it,  and  gave  to  it  a  new  birth.  The 
Middle  States  can  show  hundreds  of  the  ruins  of 
fanciful  colonies,  established  from  above,  by  this 
or  that  schemer  who  meant  —  as  Robert  Owen  did, 
as  St.  Simon  did  —  to  bring  in  a  new  kingdom. 
But  such  endeavors  have  regularly  failed.  The 
unsuccessful  colonies  established  before  the  time 
of  Jamestown  were  similar  failures.  The  colony 
of  Virginia  almost  failed,  for  a  like  reason,  and  it 
was  not  until  a  popular  element  was  introduced  in 
her  affairs  that  a  favorable  era  of  prosperity  set  in. 
Exactly  the  same  is  true  of  the  early  history  of  the 
Carolinas. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  States  in  which  emigra 
tion  is  as  free  as  air,  irresistibly,  from  the  law  of 
man's  nature,  one  might  say,  prospered.  A  dozen 
men,  with  their  families,  be  it  observed,  found 
themselves  neighbors  of  each  other  on  the  same 
township  or  grant,  or,  if  they  preceded  any  survey, 


462     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

in  the  same  valley.  Infallibly  they  consulted  to 
gether  about  building  the  necessary  roads  and 
bridges.  Roads  and  bridges  may  be  said  to  be 
the  first  necessity  of  organized  society.  For  de 
fence  against  savages,  perhaps  for  carrying  the 
mail,  and,  before  long,  for  common  worship,  for 
common  education,  these  men  must  meet  together. 
Every  one  is  interested.  Every  one  expresses  his 
interest.  Every  one  offers  his  plan.  If  a  plan  is 
tried  and  fails,  the  experiment  has  been  on  so 
small  a  scale  that  no  one  suffers  greatly.  If  it  is 
tried  and  succeeds,  every  little  community  in  the 
neighborhood  tries  the  experiment  again,  and  it 
works  its  way  over  the  land. 

It  is  in  this  freedom  by  which  every  man  acts, 
and  is  expected  to  act  in  social  affairs,  that  the 
mystery  and  majesty  of  self-government  consist. 
The  writers  of  Europe  generally  misapprehend 
self-government,  and  the  European  advisers  of 
America  misapprehend  it.  Self-government  does 
not  consist  in  the  election,  by  any  "  plebiscite  "  or 
other  public  act,  of  the  magistrate  or  emperor  who 
is  to  govern  the  people.  Self-government  does  not 
appear  till  the  people  govern  themselves.  In 
homes,  in  churches,  in  the  meetings  of  school  dis 
tricts  or  of  townships,  in  the  affairs  of  insurance 
companies  or  railways,  in  lodges,  chapters,  com- 
manderies,  and  posts  of  charitable  societies,  the 
people  which  is  used  to  self-government  carries 
out  its  methods  of  self-government.  Among  the 
methods,  one  is  the  choice  of  a  chief  magistrate, 


Conclusion  463 

to  attend  to  certain  national  affairs,  to  which  kings 
attend  in  other  nations.  But  this  man  is  not  the 
ruler  of  the  nation  which  chooses  him;  on  the 
other  hand,  he  is  ruled  by  the  nation. 

Any  enterprise  which  is  to  succeed  in  America 
recognizes  as  a  very  important  element  for  success 
this  aptness  of  the  people  for  self-government  and 
the  manifold  triumphs  which  have  sprung  from  it. 
The  successful  projector  leaves  every  agent,  as  far 
as  possible,  to  work  with  his  own  tools,  in  his  own 
way,  to  bring  his  own  contribution  to  the  common 
weal,  and  is  glad  to  accept  the  intelligent  sugges 
tion  and  co-operation  of  all  concerned.  He  is  glad 
to  have  public  opinion  and  the  public  sentiment 
on  his  side.  He  does  not  resent  advice  from  one 
of  his  hands.  He  is  glad  if  any  one  of  them  speaks 
of  "  our  success,  our  plans,  our  improvement." 

One  of  the  most  intelligent  English  essayists  on 
the  modern  inventions  in  mechanical  art  says  dis 
tinctly  that  to  this  ready  co-operation  of  the  work 
men  in  the  American  shops  is  due,  in  large 
measure,  the  success  of  American  novelties  in 
machinery.  He  says  that  a  new  model  introduced 
in  an  American  shop  challenges  the  interest  of 
everybody.  Everybody  is  ready  to  make  a  sug 
gestion.  Everybody  wants  it  to  succeed.  The 
men  set  to  work  upon  it  cherish  it  as  if  it  were 
their  own.  It  has  the  best  chance  from  the  begin 
ning.  The  contrast  which  he  draws,  from  the  cool 
and  indifferent  reception  of  a  new  invention  in  an 


464     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

English  shop,  need  not  be  quoted  here.  It  is  not 
flattering.  At  bottom  the  common  feeling  of 
mutual  help,  trained  by  all  true  American  institu 
tions,  is  the  origin  of  the  cordial  welcome  thus 
given  to  the  new  invention. 

Men  like  to  work  together.  They  have  a  com 
mon  share,  of  course,  in  the  common  weal,  and 
they  are  glad  to  have  it  recognized. 

Now  in  the  village  of  Hampton  this  common 
force  of  the  "  together  "  was  recognized,  not  simply 
in  political  government,  but,  as  the  reader  has  seen, 
in  all  their  affairs.  It  was  not  necessary  to  import 
such  an  arrangement,  or  to  ask  any  legislator  to 
devise  it  for  them.  The  people  drifted  into  the 

plan 

"  From  native  impulse,  elemental  force." 

Thus,  a  detail  as  much  parted  from  their  politi 
cal  system  as  was  the  management  of  their  amuse 
ments  took  care  of  itself,  as  one  is  tempted  to  say, 
because  it  was  every  man's  affair.  It  is  not  quite 
just  to  say  that  no  one  takes  care  of  that  which 
every  one  should  care  for.  It  may  be  that  self 
ish  men  hold  back;  it  often  is  so.  But  let  it  be 
proudly  recognized  that  the  responsibility  of  any 
enterprise  is  with  the  community  and  not  with  the 
individual,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  Dick  Sheridan's 
district  meeting,  which  has  been  described,  the 
community  can  be  made  to  understand  its  responsi 
bility.  When  it  is  made  to  understand  it  and  to 
accept  it,  it  will  go  forward  much  more  steadily 
than  when  it  is  instructed  from  above  or  com- 


Conclusion  465 

manded  from  above.  So  it  proved  in  the  matter 
of  amusements.  This  community  provided  for 
them  lavishly,  while  it  provided  for  them  intelli 
gently.  It  did  so  because  the  leaders  of  opinion 
trusted  the  people  with  a  matter  which  specially 
concerned  the  people.  The  people,  in  consequence, 
secured  amusements  which  amused,  and  entertain 
ments  which  entertained.  At  the  same  time,  these 
were  amusements  and  entertainments  which  did 
not  degrade  or  contaminate  their  children. 

The  same  thing  is  to  be  said  of  the  public  library. 
One  finds,  not  infrequently,  a  large  foundation  for 
a  public  library,  in  which  the  annual  income  is 
carefully,  even  wisely,  expended,  but  where  the 
real  people  of  the  place,  for  whom  such  costly 
provision  is  made,  do  not  avail  themselves  of  the 
books  which  are  at  their  hands.  You  shall  find 
that  in  one  town  a  free  library  is  diligently  and 
largely  used,  and,  in  another  town,  that  a  better 
library  is  hardly  used  at  all.  You  may  go  into  a 
large  and  elegant  reading-room  of  a  winter  evening, 
to  find  perhaps  one  boy,  for  whom  all  this  lavish 
preparation  has  been  made.  The  other  boys  and 
the  girls,  the  men  and  the  women,  have  not  ac 
cepted  the  "  silent  friends  "  who  are  waiting  for 
them.  The  books  stand  not  read  upon  the 
shelves. 

The  people  of  Hampton  secured  themselves 
from  such  mortification,  because  they  themselves 
conducted,  as  they  had  organized,  their  library. 
They  knew  what  they  wanted,  and  they  bought  it. 

30 


466     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

It  was  well  for  them,  perhaps,  that  they  had  not 
too  large  a  fund  for  the  purchase  of  books.  They 
counted  the  dollars  which  they  spent,  and  they 
spent  them  well.  But  nothing  was  more  clear  than 
that  the  library  did  not  suffer  because  it  depended 
upon  the  public  generosity.  There  was  nothing, 
I  was  told,  for  which  money  was  voted  so  gener 
ously  in  the  annual  meeting.  "  After  they  once 
tasted  blood,"  Mr.  Spinner  said  to  me,  "  they  were 
always  ready  to  vote  the  appropriations." 

The  readjustment  of  the  savings  bank,  which 
has  been  described,  was  simply  the  application 
of  the  same  habit.  It  came  from  the  magic  of 
"  together."  If  there  is  mutual  insurance,  why 
not  mutual  banking?  If  a  poor  man  can  place 
money  on  deposit,  why  may  he  not  draw  it,  if  he 
have  good  indorsers?  There  is  no  greater  mis 
take  than  that  which  supposes  that,  because  a 
man  has  but  little,  he  will  be  careless  about 
investment.  He  is  more  careful  than  the  man 
of  millions.  And  the  necessity  of  keeping  well 
what  they  had  earned  hardly,  made  the  Hampton 
weavers  very  cautious  before  they  granted  their 
indorsements. 

It  has  been  intimated  already,  more  than  once, 
that  the  success  of  their  movement,  in  one  detail 
or  another,  sprang  from  their  willingness  to  sub 
mit  to  Christian  requisitions,  while  they  claimed  and 
expected  the  advantages  promised  to  the  living 
children  of  the  living  God.  They  were  willing  to 


Conclusion  467 

do  their  share  in  working  out  their  own  salvation, 
and  they  knew  that  while  they  worked,  God  worked 
with  them.  They  were  not  expecting  the  coming 
of  any  kingdom  for  which  they  had  not  made  some 
sacrifice  themselves.  And  it  was  because  they 
trusted  the  God  to  whom  they  prayed,  that  they 
believed  that  the  Christian  law  of  love  would  be 
sufficient  for  their  enterprise. 

These  sketches  of  the  prosperity  which  fol 
lows  on  an  attempt  to  carry  out  Christian  law 
in  Christian  love  are  dedicated  to  any  man  and 
woman  who  seek  in  the  gospel  the  direction  for 
daily  life.  It  is  not  pretended  that  such  plans  will 
recommend  themselves  to  individuals  who  want  to 
live  alone,  every  man  for  himself,  or  who  seek 
only  the  separate  indulgences  of  such  lonely  life. 
For  such  men  it  may  be  freely  granted  that  the 
cold-blooded  maxims  of  the  economists  are  the 
only  maxims.  But  the  success  of  these  maxims 
in  tKe  social  history  of  the  world  has  not  been  so 
decided  that  they  should  tempt  any  one  to  accept 
them  as  a  rule  of  life. 

Such  plans  for  the  good  of  all,  as  those  attempted 
at  Hampton,  could  not  have  been  carried  out  in 
any  heathen  civilization.  They  would  have  failed  in 
ancient  Rome ;  they  would  have  failed  in  Athens ; 
they  would  have  failed  in  ancient  Jerusalem.  They 
belong  only  in  the  social  system  founded  by  the 
Saviour  of  mankind,  among  men  and  women  who 
hope  to  live  in  his  Spirit  and  by  his  Law. 

Perhaps  this  has  been  said  often  enough,  as  the 


468      How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

different  chapters  have  described  different  details. 
The  men  and  women  who  embark  on  such  plans 
must  understand  in  their  personal  religious  ex 
perience,  that  "  if  one  member  suffer,  all  the  mem 
bers  suffer  with  it,"  and  that  if  one  member  is  to 
rejoice,  all  the  members  will  rejoice  with  it.  They 
will  remember  that  the  Saviour,  in  his  promises 
for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  does  not 
address  such  promises  to  any  one  lonely  follower. 
He  takes  it  for  granted,  rather,  that  such  lonely 
follower  breathes  the  common  life  of  the  church, 
and  that  its  life-blood  flows  in  his  veins.  It  is  to 
the  "  little  flock "  that  he  promises  the  Kingdom. 
And  to  the  flock,  "  if  ye  seek  the  Kingdom  of 
God,"  he  promises  the  temporal  success  which 
belongs  with  the  Kingdom,  and  is  the  reward  of 
such  endeavor.  It  is  nowhere  promised  to  the 
Buddhist,  satisfied  with  self-inspection ;  it  is  no 
where  promised  to  the  hermit,  parting  himself 
from  men.  It  is  promised  to  those  who  are  sons 
and  daughters  of  God,  united  in  one  Spirit,  who 
pray  with  one  prayer  to  the  Father. 

By  a  movement  perfectly  steady  and  assured, 
the  Christian  church  has  moved  forward  on  the 
lines  thus  indicated. 

It  abolished  human  slavery,  —  first  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  eventually  in  the  Christian  world. 

It  raised  the  condition  of  woman,  —  first  to  the 
condition  she  had  enjoyed  in  the  Holy  Land,  eventu 
ally  to  a  grade  where  she  is  the  recognized  equal 
of  man. 


Conclusion  469 

The  feudal  system,  under  Christian  lead,  took 
the  place  of  the  social  tyranny  of  Rome,  and, 
in  its  turn,  gave  way  to  the  social  order  which 
gives  every  man  and  woman  equal  rights  before 
the  law. 

As  it  advances,  the  Christian  Spirit  provides  for 
the  humblest  and  weakest  child  of  God  the  same 
privileges  for  health,  for  education,  for  develop 
ment,  as  are  provided  for  the  richest. 

In  government,  as  the  Spirit  of  Christ  and  his 
Law  take  more  possession  of  men,  the  People 
rules  itself,  —  it  is  no  longer  under  the  direction 
of  any  man  or  any  class.  The  Saviour's  word  is 
fulfilled,  and  "  he  who  is  greatest  among  you  is 
your  servant."  The  word  "  democracy "  means 
simply  the  application  of  Christianity  in  politics. 

It  is  for  the  next  century  and  the  closing  years 
of  this  to  show  how  these  eternal  principles  of  a 
divine  life  are  to  inspire  the  great  commercial 
movements  of  modern  time.  In  manufacture,  in 
all  the  applications  of  science  for  the  comfort  of 
mankind,  and  in  that  trade  in  which  nation  ex 
changes  products  against  nation  and  man  against 
man,  the  divine  law  is  to  reign.  Such  social 
arrangements  also  are  to  come  into  God's  King 
dom.  Men  will  not  be  content  to  live  every  man 
for  himself,  nor  to  die  every  man  for  himself.  In 
work,  in  art,  in  study,  in  trade,  —  in  all  life,  indeed, 
—  the  children  of  God,  called  by  a  Saviour's  voice, 
will  wish  to  live  in  the  common  cause.  They  will 
live  for  the  common  wealth,  —  this  is  the  modern 


47°     How  They  Lived  in  Hampton 

phrase.  They  will  bear  each  other's  burdens,  — 
this  is  the  phrase  of  Paul.  They  will  live  in  the 
life  of  Love.  And  it  will  prove  true,  as  it  was 
promised,  that  all  things  are  added  to  the  com 
munity  which  thus  seeks  the  Kingdom  of  God  and 
his  Righteousness. 


THE  END 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


MAY  3 177 

FEB  2 1  1978  fiEC'D 


50m-l,'69(J5643s8)2373— 3A.1 


£> 

53X 


3TORED  AT  NRL 


PS1772.S9  1900 


3  2106  00206  9489 


